Heart Less Love
by Bhryn Astairre
Summary: Sequel to Love Not Often Today, not yesterday. Tomorrow, not today. The future, an uncertain path that no one can claim to know and what it has in store for Tifa, Cloud and their precious Flower Girl is yet to be seen...
1. Prologue1 Part One: Body

**Heart Less Love**

_(( A/N: Everyone loved Love Not Often so much, that I decided that I DID want to do a sequel. The sequel where Tifa and Aerith build a future together… but what future could it be?))_

_(( A/N 2: This will have far less chapters than Love Not Often – er, hopefully! Haha! Starts with the Three Prologues - reflecting the trinity theme played throughout FF7 :) yay - hope you all like it!))_

**Part One: Body**

"_Shilly Shally, Dilly Dally…"_

_

* * *

_

It was all worth it.

_I knew those words. I knew how to say them and form the shapes with my mouth, knew how to make them tumble effortlessly with a tongue gone numb from lying and lying, why was I always lying?_

_So if I say now, it was all worth it, I am unsure._

_They say, and will always say, it started with a fateful meeting between a Soldier and a flower girl. But that's not strictly true._

_Actually, it started years before I had even been a twinkle in my father's eye. Back before Mako power – or the power of the Lifestream as it should be correctly known – was mined as a valuable power source, ShinRa had been a decent company. However, with the discovery of the mako hidden inside the very sod beneath their feet changed them. They wanted to change themselves and other people, for the better. But along the way, it somehow got all messed up._

_A great professor called Gast Faremisu mined the Jenova specimen from a geological stratum. It was to be used within many experiments on people, fascinated with the strange alien cells and the way it reacted with the lifeblood of the very planet, similar in the reaction found deep inside on a genetic level as the Cetra._

_However, from these experiments with mako and alien cells, a good man called Vincent fell prey to it and was made into a horrible half man, half monster. Even now, he tells us that he's afraid it might get worse, that he's never sure where he stops and the monster begins. And because he was unable to prevent the experiment for Sephiroth, born of those Jenova cells implanted into an unborn child, he feels everything has been his sin._

_So from that day on, we found ourselves slowly crumbling under the thumb of ShinRa and its executives. Yet one day there was a change…_

_That was the day when it didn't 'begin' but it 'changed'. The fate for everyone altered drastically the moment the Soldier happened to meet the Last Ancient, also called, The Flower girl._

_We came together like wounded animals, licking at the very festering sores which ShinRa inflicted upon each of us, determined to change the very fate of the entire Planet if need be, to stop them and the resurgence of Sephiroth, controlled by the genetic alternation, the abomination called Jenova. The Soldier, the Flower Girl, the Barmaid, the Terrorist, the Spy without a Name, the Protector, the Materia Hunter, the Sinner and the Sky Pilot._

_All of us with nothing in common but the hate which sustained us, apart from…_

_You see, it was my fault._

_Vincent sometimes, well, he denies it. But I know when he looks upon her now, he is trying his hardest to forget his painful past, trying hard to reconcile himself with the fact she lives. But once, it had all been very different._

_And that was my fault._

_That is my sin._

* * *

Cloud jumped to the last step and came to a rest by where the Ancient was still deep in prayer, hands clasped and her eyes closed with a suspicious glint on her smooth cheeks. He circled her and looked down to where she and Yuffie were stood by the bottom step, the others at a higher ledge, watching them from a safe distance.

Then he was drawing his sword, raising it above his head...

"_Cloud, **stop**_!" screamed the Wutai ninja.

"**_What are you doing_**?" Tifa shouted with sudden anger.

He shook his head and dropped the blade, stepping back, "Ugh... what are you making me do?"

It was as if reality suspended itself. There was a moment of strange clarity as the Cetra girl unfolded her hands, lifting her head up to stare at Cloud and he, self-revulsion filling his eyes, stared back helplessly, hands slowly reaching out.

She moved her lips, _"...I have done it."_

Then those eyes of bright green shifted and pierced Tifa as she stood watching. A sharp blow to the heart as she simply looked at her, eyes filled with emotion and tears that trickled down her cheeks. A sixth sense made her want to scream 'look out' or possibly leap up there and do something, move her... but as the flower girl smiled, there was a rush of blackness, a rustle of leather and...

...and then there was the end of a six foot sword, slender and deadly, glittering silver, piercing her middle.

Aerith's eyes widened and her hands lifted in shock, then she winced. The blood could audibly be heard, spattering on the stone and dripping with repetitive noise. A stain covered the front and back of the pink dress rapidly, so rapidly that Tifa tried her hardest not to focus on it. Tried to pretend it was just a dream. Pinching her thigh seemed to do no good...

Sephiroth, the dark demon of her nightmares tugged his sword free whilst smirking.

The Ancient lurched, hair ribbon suddenly flying free with the shock and a small materia which emitted a glow which was a delicate shade of green escaped, chinking down the steps towards the water. Even as she fell down, the flower girl reached as if to stop the materia, then she smiled again. But her eyes never once left Tifa as she breathed in painfully, and then out, then...

...then...

...then she breathed no more.

* * *

_So we bitterly smiled at the end._

_We even congratulated ourselves and said to each other, it was worth it._

_It wasn't. Time to stop lying._

_I was never worth it._

_Nothing was ever worth losing her for._

_I cried each night and day for almost a fortnight solid after the end when the lifestream rose up and took the sky back from the dark clouds gathering like swarming flies. I laid in bed and sweated, shook with fear and didn't move a single muscle._

_Because she wasn't there, anymore._

_I couldn't begin to imagine it._

_I was nothing; in fact, I would be nothing without her. I owed her everything, for bringing me back from that cliff beyond which the chasm of despair, selfishness and blackest rage sought to consume what little I had inside, what little was left of me._

_She saved me._

_And all I did… was to watch her die._

_That is my sin._

…_maybe to die with such a stain on my soul, I could accept that. But my soul died and only this body kept moving. Until… until…_

…_she came back to me, because there was more for her to do._

_Why can't she ever get a break?_

_Why is it always her who has to sweep up after everyone else, after closing hours, humming a little sad tune and pretending she doesn't mind? I'm angry for her! I'm angry because she refuses to be angry about it!_

_She doesn't deserve this._

_She doesn't._

_She says to me, I am her hero._

_Does she know how we all idolise her as our hero?_

_Because she's perfect inside. Because she's perfect. Because…_

…

_Because I'm not._

_That's okay too._

_She loves me, just as I am. Tomorrow is a scary place. When I wake up, there she'll be, laid on the bed beside me and smiling at the sunshine, having awakened hours before me with that silly rule she lives by, early to bed and early to rise. Not that I mind going to bed with her early at all…_

_And with that smile, the sins of yesterday melt away, with grief, with anger, with stabbing hatred at me and I can smile too. For she is mine._

…_because she _**is**


	2. Prologue2 Part Two: Mind

**Heart Less Love**

**Part Two: Mind**

"_I think… I want to be forgiven…"_

_

* * *

_

_I'm a mess._

_I mean, a real mess, up in my head._

_I had a thousand thoughts, a million ideas, a hundred books of literature I wanted to say, all stashed up there, but could I get even one single, itty bitty word out? No. It was like trying to grab soup with my fingers. Pointless exercise in futility that left me burned and scarred._

_I'm not sure how or when, but sometime in the past I knew I was never going to be good enough._

_Isn't that a sad thing for a child to realise? That he will never be good enough to gain let alone accept the attention of his peers and elders._

_I felt so small and insignificant; the distinct lack in height certainly did nothing to help either. I boasted after several run-ins that I would leave that backwater town I called home and see the world. It wouldn't find me so small or insignificant. When I came home, I said, I would be a prouder, stronger man._

…_ironically, when I came home, I brought only destruction and death with me._

_The fire was so hot. I can still feel it burning._

_To this day, I have become wary when around fires. I don't like to sit too close, it stirs the memory of blood and pain and the dying shrieks of my mother from inside our broken house, where I couldn't drag my pathetically frail body to rescue her from. She died there and something broke inside of me._

_I was weak._

_In my head I created delusions._

_I listened to stories that my friend Zack would tell me. He'd been places, he'd seen things. What was I? I was nothing. I was no one. I was just a sad little boy who had run away from home in a fit of temper, only to come back and burn it to the ground._

_I wanted to be him._

_I wanted that lifestyle._

_I don't remember him dying, but he must have, for the clothes I wore were so similar to his, along with the shoulder guard I may have purloined in a fit of mentally clouded need to belong. I took his sword too. But damn, that thing weighed a tonne when I first hoisted it._

_I got used to the weight eventually, of course, but it gave me a whole new respect for the training Zack must have endured._

_Zack, can you forgive me?_

_My best friend… how did I ever leave you die there? What… what was wrong with me? Is… that is… why am I always so weak?_

_The city was large, my fears larger and my neuroses eating away at me constantly from the inside. My childhood friend or perhaps never-was friend, she cared for me when I could no longer walk, when I could no longer speak. But it was that day, when everything changed._

_I stopped trying to hide because I knew you were trying to reach for me, little flower. I stopped trying to pretend about myself, because I knew you didn't care for lies the same as the others who fostered them, who helped build my image from whole cloth. You never said anything but the look in your faraway eyes said it all._

_Sadness. Hope. Love. Courage._

_You had everything I didn't have._

_Maybe you should have been in Soldier then. Because it was sure as day that I was only a dropout pretending to have a life, pretending and acting the part. You said…_

_

* * *

_

"I wanted just a night off, from being an Ancient."

"What do you mean?"

She laughed, touching the last step and dancing towards the door as if her steps were made from air, as if she was born to dance, an ethereal grace filling her motions. "Don't you think about it? You're always turning to me for help because I'm the Ancient, the magical Cetra being who can right all wrongs. Don't you think that's a bit oppressive? I'm still Aerith too, just a flower girl who met a soldier and set out to change the world. And still a girl, who wants to be taken on some dates now and then."

* * *

_The fireworks that night, they were startling, they were wonderful, they were everything in your eyes. I watched them and prayed that tomorrow I would have the strength to let you know the 'real me'. I cursed myself for stupidity when you asked to meet the real me and all I could do was summon up some lame answer._

_I bet you couldn't believe what an idiot you had to work with._

_And just as quickly as you promised we'd all laugh together about it, you were gone. You knew, I think, that it was coming. You'd become sick in spirit as we traveled with the knowledge of your own death, of the kind of sacrifice it would ask you to make. So you prepared yourself for it._

_I still remember Tifa screaming at me, not to let you go into the cold waters of the Ancient city._

_That's right._

_Tifa Lockhart. My childhood friend that never was._

_You loved her, didn't you? You kissed her goodnight and held her hand as even when you lay there in your own blood, that last smile was for her._

_I don't get it._

_Why did you…come back for me then?_

_I asked her about it, you know. I told her of the memories, I told her of the pain… I told her everything…There was this light in the darkness, you see…_

_

* * *

_

It was bright.

Perhaps far brighter than anything he had seen since that time aboard the Highwind, when it had blinded his eyes to tears and tore into his heart. It was over then, they had assumed. It was all over and finally they could rest and so could she. But the Planet still fought the sickness that Jenova had left behind, leached into the very core of their beloved world, the world she had given everything up for. What a waste it seemed like to him, that she should have to go and still only nothing but further anguish torment everyone.

Wasn't it enough?

He'd loved her after all.

So in the pool of blood, there had been the slick sickly denial of the truth that she was gone and he was to blame. If only they'd all managed to leave her behind, there on the outpost to forever, or maybe take her as far as Kalm and let her seek out a quieter life, with flowers, with love.

He turned his head a little as the light faded. Stark realisation closed in that he was stood upright in a field of flowers, bobbing heads of white and faintly marked with a limned edge of yellow. They seemed to smile up at him.

Though the confusion cut the sensation of a hand on his arm and the most beautiful voice he knew, chiming in silvery tones as bright as her laughter, "You came, even though you're about to break. That's a good sign."

He stared at the floor, frozen with confusion and fear, with the need to turn about in a lunge and grab her back to the reality his life had become. Who cared if Tifa wanted her, who cared if this was all just some strange, sick fever dream brought on by the terminal illness? He wanted her back with them, he needed her.

"So," She sighed, as if she didn't already know the answers and he found tears prickling at the backs of his eyelids, "Why did you come?"

"I think…" Cloud breathed…

* * *

…_I want to be forgiven._

_And I think I was, but you'd forgive anyone anything, wouldn't you?_

_No hate in the heart without any shadow, no anger in the soul without any hate, no fear in the dreams of the girl without rage. Free of any taint, standing all alone in her little field of flowers._

_Those years between now and then were painful for us all. I'm trying my hardest not to lord it over everyone with my pain._

_I… can just about accept that you and Tifa were… I can…_

_Intimate._

_That's the word I'm looking for._

_That you stained her pillow with your tears and left her with the sharpest memory of her. I can't decide, was that cruel to love her so much, or kind?_

_But who to, exactly?_

_But you're back with us._

_You sell flowers, you tend an orphanage where Tifa helps out, and you spend your days seeking out the good work of the planet and encouraging it back to life, sweeping away the devastation of the past few decades. Who would have thought that someone as powerful and as changed as you by your time in the Life Stream, would wish to lead a life so… nondescript?_

_That's what I love though. You're so down to earth, whilst I'm off with my head in the clouds._

_Only now when you look far away, there are things missing and I know in the quiet solitude you're hunting for the right way to put everything back together, not just the Planet, not just the sickness of Jenova._

_But about you._

_About all of us._

_Vincent preaches on about sins and sins, always with the sin! But listening to him, I was pardoned for a sin you said I never committed… so I got to thinking. What was my sin?_

_I put my finger on it finally._

_Me._

_I am the sin. I am my own sin. A messed up kid, I think the term was. Nothing but that, dear one, nothing at all. Because I was so messed up, things went badly. If I only knew how to open up, then I wouldn't have suffered under Sephiroth's thumb, nor have lost you along the way…_

_So I am my own sin._

_Isn't that ironically fitting?_

…_isn't it just…_


	3. Prologue3 Part Three: Soul

**Heart Less Love**

**Part Three: Soul**

"_You came for me… that was enough, wasn't it?"_

_

* * *

_

_If she is the body, and he is the mind, I guess that makes me the soul._

_What is a soul?_

_Is it the heart the seat of all human reason? Of course, many will say that the mind does such but the mind, I believe, just records all the experiences you have in relation to these reasonings, these emotions and feelings. Such is the phrase, 'Follow your heart'. You don't hear anyone suggesting following their mind? Or perhaps even more clearly, the phrase, 'the heart knows best.'_

_So I am feeling. I am the lost emotions and voices I have become sunken into._

_What a mess, what a strange array of unsorted and fruitless desires and unrequited reactions I have become. Where once, I was simply passive, there it was that I suddenly became reactionary. It was there on the verge of changing me forever, that I knew I would do something else._

_I would change more than simply the world._

_The more profound change came with how people thought and lived their lives._

_Many people can say they've changed the world, but how many can say they have forcefully and for the better, affected lives for generations, maybe even forever?_

…_and sadly, I don't remember it clearly._

_Faces in the glass of my mind are murky. They are familiar, I know some and dread others, there are memories locked away, deep inside my soul, my heart where I am unwilling to venture._

_And why should I?_

_The Planet had its reasons for bringing me back._

_There is still so much to do._

_I wish it all could have been over for me when I had crumpled on the altar, but then I needed to use the Life Stream so I roused from agonised watching of the girl called Tifa to do so. Then, changing with every increment of power awakened in my thirsty and depthless mind, I slept briefly until the sickness came into the lifestream again and I was awakened once more._

_The sickness was Jenova, long reaching talons still digging into countless lives long after she has passed, long after she has gone away. The GeoStigma which affected people from as young as birth to elderly age was a sickness caught from protracted vicinity of the life stream._

_Marlene said that Geo Stigma was the Planets backlash against the humans because it was angry. She might not be very wrong indeed._

_I passed away and those who could have prevented it, humans, simply stood about and watched as I fell down into death with shadows of memory clinging to me as a shroud. The Planet was angry, angry they had just stood there, angry they didn't stay, angry no shrine was made to mark my martyrs grave. I didn't mind, of course, a grave is not where the spirit lies after all. But the disease of Jenova provoked a stronger backlash than I had anticipated from the Planet. It forced the bodies of man to compensate for the new disease, their antibodies working hard against the infection. But overzealousness and anger hidden deep within the spirit of this world leaked out and the antibodies over compensated and ended up making people sicker._

_Yes, the Planet was angry but also no, it really did wish to help._

_I came to help when everything seemed on the verge of falling apart and even then, I could only just recall things on the edge of my blurred memories, fading into the stream that is life, all life, on this world._

_Towards the end, there was a lot of pain._

_Because I could remember properly, Tifa and Cloud, love and friendship. I could remember that I missed them terribly, even if Zack continued to protect me inside the Lifestream the same as he had done since meeting me on the streets of Midgar, hiding me from ShinRa._

_A window of my life, open, closed, open, closed, open…_

_The draft is coming in, chill as winter._

_I came back._

_Why?_

_I think I knew, or maybe thinking I thought that I knew, a lie in a lie wrapped around a truth… or something. I don't know, it's all very hard to make sense of._

_I came back, because I missed you._

_That I had some work still to do was peripheral to the hidden strength I drew from knowing I'd be among you all again._

_You know, I have to ask this, so don't be angry._

_Do you… hate… _him?

_You know. _**Him.**

_I don't. I sympathise, pity perhaps, but I don't blame him. I forgive him freely. I do it because no one else could._

_Wouldn't you wonder too at it?_

_Jenova, you ask, what is that anyway?_

_A secret truth hidden inside the temple of the Ancients, an old set of riddles that I knew the meaning to but kept to myself because I thought there would be no need for me to draw these back out into the open again after all this time._

_They say:_

Across forever skies, flung centuries  
Distant star falling in flaming demise;  
To ground and deeper ground in ice.

Inside the heart of all creation  
Beats steady vein of malevolence  
And all that once was, or is, or shall be  
Shall pass beyond into nothing again.

_It's pretty cryptic, I know._

_I guess you're astonished that someone who can't even remember if you crack eggs or not before baking with them, or even put the knife and fork on the table the right way can recall this when everything else is a blur._

_But this is really, dreadfully important. It's from this that I knew what would happen if I didn't succeed… and also from this that I know now, I would come once more. Of the materia known to us in the world, there is only one white material and one black. Why is that?_

_White materia that I has can call the power of Holy, the ultimate magic of the Cetra. It sustained, invigorated and protected – a basic cure-all for the Planet they live upon. But the Black one?_

_When Jenova fell from the skies long ago, it wasn't precisely as we imagine it to be. The black Materia actually called down a meteor for Jenova. Jenova, a corruption of the Canyon tribe's word for 'Fearful God', was an alien from another Planet, much like the Cetra._

_Only where Cetra went to create and nourish, the race from which Jenova descended sought to destroy._

_It is a well known cycle of primal forces in the world, creation and destruction._

_What isn't so well known, is that the Materia coloured black was never from this world. It came from outer space. It wasn't a chunk of solidified life stream like which the Cetra used. It was the devastating power of the 'Jenova' race._

_That's why Sephiroth could use it. I suppose in essence, Cloud could use it too, Zack if he lived, even Hojo after he injected himself. But when the crater at the Knowlespole collapsed with the death of Sephiroth's mortal form and mental dissipation into the Planet, the black materia was lost to us forever._

_I am unsure if this is for better or for worse._

_I know the cycle of life and death, the eternal wheel of life will yawn on and on through the centuries… and for some reason, it deemed fit to bring me back to life._

_But a life where I remember only shards of everything I was and everything I did…_

_I know this though._

_I loved._

_I loved and was loved deeply._

_I always kept it inside, but that's alright. Now I have time to find the words I need to say it. Now I know just what it is that I want to say. I know it as surely as I know the sun rises and sets and the world outside the window is the world I fought for, at peace, at loving and ever lasting peace._

_And you, when you sing in the shower or leave coffee mugs on the desk without a mat to stand it on, when you track mud in the house as kids, laughing, Denzel and Marlene, both come running after you, laughing too. I love that. I love your hair flying, I love your laughter without the edge of self loathing it used to contain, I love the home made pasta you cook, I love how you always collapse face down into the pillows on the bed with a hearty groan and ah, I love beyond reason how you fuss with my necklace and always blush when you call me 'Rissy'._

_I love it._

_And my greatest sin, the greatest sin of all, was never saying it._

…_was loving… and never once telling you…_

_And…I'm sorry…_


	4. Part Four: Shadows

**Heart Less Love**

**Part Four: Shadows**

_"It looked like... our dead mothers... and our dead brothers. Showing us spectres of their past... It first approached as a friend, deceived them and finally gave them the virus. The Cetra were attacked by the virus and went mad... transforming into monsters."_

_

* * *

_

She wriggled her fingers.

For some reason, watching how the skin tautened and relaxed absolutely fascinated her, she loved the play of tendons as they moved back and forth, stretching her fingers and then curling them up in relaxation back into a loose ball of a hand. She was absolutely sure that the calluses on her fingertips were because of hard work and painstaking care she had given to flowers before, she was absolutely certain that she had once felt her hands go lax and loose before, a kind of looseness that comes from utterly surrendering.

But why she gave up, she couldn't say.

But why she once held on just as hard, she couldn't say, either.

In the distance of the field of flowers, she could see the figures of the small group who had agreed to come on a trip to spend some time away from Edge where they worked as hard as the calluses on her fingers could attest to. Laughter bubbled around them, as warm as the nodding yellow faces of the flowers in their glory, basking in the sunshine. There was loose hair flying, a wild game of chase and tag, a strange mix between the two and even the often shy nervous laughter of the tall man who was snowed down by the slighter, smaller figure of a boy.

She watched them all play, feeling distant and strange, the grass tickling her legs under her full dark red skirt. She'd finally given up her gardening boots for a pair of comfortable half heeled ankle boots that had the tops turned down, stitched into place to prevent them from flapping everywhere. Instead of a pink shirt, she'd chosen a white slip top that exposed her arms and most of her shoulders to the brilliant sunshine. Her hair was caught away from her face, in the familiar braid, but this time threaded with ribbons of pink and white, so intertwined with the hair that it all seemed to be one.

The field of flowers she stood by was close to a winding road on the far side and behind her the crash of a sea only a short walk away, caught and tormented her ears. Even now, the dreams of the water which grew brighter as she sank lower haunted her every night. It frightened her to the point where she sat up, clawing awake and gasping for air.

Within moments, she would be at her side, clutching her hands down from raking the air in desperate, half sleep fuelled motions that mimicked the swimming stroke she knew best. She would smooth her hair, fetch warmed milk with a stick of fresh cinnamon thrown in, cuddle her until the tears stopped and then tuck her into bed, humming that music which she remembered from her dreams, from her non existence.

She called it 'her song'. Why else wouldn't she call it such; the song had been written for her birthday after all. Or… was it for another holiday that it had been written?

It was a beautiful piece of music though; not without a good ear for music herself, she could distinguish the delicate nuance of each passing phrase and the thrumming, almost breaking crescendo at the end of the piece followed by tentative last wisps of notes, fading away into the white noise of the day.

Yes, it fit her perfectly.

She … she supposed.

What she had done yesterday, the days leading to the day she stood on the verge of this field, had been… wonderful? She supposed they had been. But when she was faced with the looks of adoration, their disbelief, their worship, their ideals, she was frightened.

She wasn't some goddess.

She wasn't some incredibly powerful warrior.

She was just…

She was…

"Aerith," someone called as she looked up, quickly checking her wandering gaze from her hands to the sound of the voice. It was the girl, dark hair shining and waving, happiness on her face, the girl of her dreams.

Aerith. That was right, she was Aerith and this world where she stood, where she dreamed and where each night she wept and shook with fears she could not find words for, this world she loved.

That was why she'd given up yesterday.

She smiled and waved back, braided hair shaking as she did so. After all, was yesterday worth today? This today they had all fought so hard for? Yes, it was worth it. It was more than worth it. It was worth the warm sunshine, the laughter of children, the early morning mist, it was worth dreams and nightmares, and it was worth giving up everything she had ever known about herself for the smile on Tifa's face when she saw her.

"And you're alright with that, aren't you?"

She paused, lowering her hand from the wave to turn, eyes looking out over the pebbled beach until she was the figure, a man wearing black from head to foot, His back was to her, and she knew he was looking out over the waves. But without knowing why, she turned her back on her friends and started walking towards him as if in a daze. Under her feet, the sand crunched with each pebble that rocked against each other.

He had been so far away, yet she had heard his voice quite clearly.

Her lips moved, speaking to him as she finally came to a half at his side. She was very careful not to look to the side, a small part of her irrational mind asserting that to look would make him go up in smoke, vanishing away from her.

"Alright with giving everything up for them, you mean?"

"You diminish yourself so that others may take more, more and yet, ever more of what you are? What kind of person gives so willingly yet never asks a single thing in return? Do you not ever have plans for yourself, for your own life instead of blindly following what is so obviously set before you by the Planet?"

"I…"

"That is no matter. I came here to speak to you."

"Where from?"

The figure gestured, at the far cropped mountains of white, laid beyond the sturdy prongs of the hollow ribs of Bone Village, "The City."

"But," she protested, "It has been deserted for as long as I can recall, or my mother recalled. Only Cetra may live there, and I am the last."

"Yes, but do you really think that I meant from your time, Honoured Daughter?"

"I…" She swung her gaze back to the water, boring into it in her confusion, "You're Cetra then, which means you must be speaking from either future, or the past. I see."

"Do you?" The figure chuckled then. "You wear your emotions on your sleeve I see."

"I don't have sleeves," she said, without thinking about it, then winced and bit her lip, scrunching up her nose in a little wrinkle of self-annoyance which only made the black clad figure more amused. "I mean, well… …what did you want to speak to me about?"

"The riddle in the temple, you saw it, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"You know then, that no matter what may happen, the Cetra will survive somehow. But also, as this Planet's only Cetra, you must also understand that Jenova will not be the last threat, nor will her legacy die so readily."

"What do you mean?"

"I cannot give you those answers. They lie in your heart."

"Inside… me?"

"Jenova was the greatest hunter of Cetra that had ever existed in her race. Her ability to regenerate, to separate and to control was astounding. So much so that we knew we had to seal her away without leaving any trace of her. Humans mined her, set her free after a peaceful two thousand years. Who is to say where the next threat may come from. But know this, as the riddle said… as long as Cetra exist, so will Jenova. The answers to that riddle, you must make amends with yourself."

"But, how?" Aerith cried in frustration, turning to him with a wild look in her green eyes, "How can I unravel any riddles when I don't even remember what I did yester…day…"

The place beside her was empty. Only the sound of the sea crashed over where the figure had stood, a male figure if she guessed correctly from the tone of his voice. Her eyes, filled with confusion, as she was now and ever since her time of awakening to this world again, scanned the area as the wind carried his voice to her ears, softly beating on the inner drum.

"The answers are there, if you look for them. Never stop looking, Honoured Daughter and take care of this world, for it is all we have left to give to you…"

"Aerith!" called the girl again and she turned, a ruffle of red and white in the wind from the sea and stared with lost eyes upon the beautiful face of the taller woman. The kind, dark reddish eyes were warm, like mulled wine on a winter evening and the smile curved generous lips into something intimate. Her hand reached out and took that of Tifa's, suddenly feeling cold and alone when she came into contact with the warmer flesh. "Aerith," she exclaimed, "You're as cold as ice."

"I don't have any sleeves," she repeated herself earlier, feeling nonplussed with herself. Why did everything have to be a riddle and why couldn't they just give her the answers for once?

"Well, you said it was too warm for a jacket, remember?" The voice was tinged with both amusement and deep patience – she was always forgetting and Tifa was always there, helpfully waiting for the pieces to fall together.

"Yes, I did."

"You walked off all of a sudden with a very strange look on your face, are you alright?"

"The man, he called to me."

"Man?" Tifa looked around, dark eyes scanning the area as her slightly shorter, dark hair whipped about in the sea wind, driven ashore with the gulls and the scents of the ocean. "I didn't see anyone."

"You… didn't see anyone." Aerith curled her hands, one still tucked into Tifa's stronger, firmer gripped hand. The skin stretched and she stared down at it. Yes, once she had held on exactly like this, as if clinging for dearest life to something that was to pass away, as if to something that must leave.

But she had left.

She spoke aloud instead, "I suppose I was seeing things then, must still be working itself out in my memory."

"We knew it was going to be a long process," Tifa said, partially in relief as she soothingly rubbed the chilled shoulders of the Ancient and started to draw her away from the edge of the sea. "Come on, we have a picnic to eat and there's less of a chill from the sea in the flower field."

"…" She followed, like a lamb, but her green eyes strayed back to the water's edge where two sets of footprints were clearly visible in the pebbled sand, dented there and half filling with water.

* * *

Her face was decidedly beautiful. Especially in repose, when there was no agony of trying to fit together pieces that would not go, especially when she lay there, lost in peaceful dreams, her hair golden in the faint glint of light from the doorway which she had open, peeking through the crack.

Regretfully, she gently closed the door and left the beautiful Ancient to what looked to be the first peaceful dreams in a long time and started back down to the kitchenette where Cloud would be slouched over the table, hands wrapped around a mug of hot cocoa as they both tried to digest the strange day that Aerith had experienced. Cloud's reaction to both the girls living together was slowly improving, but he had come to look upon Tifa as a sort of rival for affection, despite some idea in the blonds head that he had been given a backseat by the Ancient in favour of Tifa long ago.

She didn't mind, if it helped him too, if Aerith was alright with having a half grown puppy of a man underfoot then she could endure it too. After all, she had her own debt to Cloud she had not paid off, for spending years telling him that they were childhood friends, lying through her teeth with an ease that Yuffie would have admired if she had known all the tangled secrets that Tifa Lockhart kept about herself.

The walls on the way to the kitchen were littered with pictures from days before to the present. There was Cloud and Barrett, both looking on the city of Midgar as they escaped, the picture of Red and Aerith in Kalm when they took a break, Barrett and his chocobo that had borne his heavy weight somehow, the crossing of the sea where she was stood with her back to the railing, looking over the seas as they burned with a sunset. There was the picture of Yuffie teasing poor Barrett as he was forced to put up with her grabbing the front seat for a rare time, before Cait had officially become Barrett's 'buddy'. Cid and Vincent, both cheating wordlessly at cards, Aerith and Cid tinkering on the buggy, the Temple of the Ancients and of course, the picture of the Ancient City she had gone back to take. There was Denzel and Marlene, laughing as they hugged each other, the group pictures of them all, a rare picture of Cloud smiling as he stood hip deep in the water which had filled Aerith's church after the gang had been destroyed. Then there were many pictures, but for her favourite, the one of Aerith sat in the Radiant Garden, surrounded by flowers. Written on the dog eared corner was, in impossibly neat handwriting: _"The flowers really did come back to the slums."_

That was the day Aerith had come from nowhere with half a memory but a full watt smile and turned Tifa's life around for the better.

Tifa came into the kitchen, not at all surprised to see Cloud hunched over the mug of cocoa but a little surprised that he held a picture in his hands, framed. He held it lovingly, staring down at it with bright blue eyes, bright even in the dimness of her kitchen at this late hour, with both children and Aerith already abed.

"I'll give you a gil for those thoughts that are rolling around in your head."

"Hmm?" He looked up and then put down the picture; Tifa could see now that it was the picture of Tifa and Aerith, sat side by side on the day before she had left to go for the fateful mission in the City of the Ancients. They both looked so happy, and she had been. "I was just thinking. Nothing in particular, that is, just thoughts, you know."

"I know. Enjoying that cocoa? I can always get you a refill."

"No, got to watch my figure," he murmured wryly and she rolled her eyes heavenward: Cloud's emergence from his shell of doubt and fragile neuroses had left him a little on the comical side, or at least he supposed, she thought.

"Yes, because clearly you are getting fat."

"But I thought black was slimming," he mock protested, and then shook his blond haired head as she busied herself in getting her own cocoa.

She smiled a little ruefully to herself. As bad as his jokes were, this was the Cloud she had long for. This was the Cloud she had hoped he would be, without doubt, without fear, without the pain of having to look back at everything he had done.

"Cloud," she said softly, "Thank you for coming with us today."

"No problem. You know, maybe… maybe she did see something down by the sea."

Her hands jarred on the lids for the cocoa and her eyes tightened just a fraction. She had been staunchly denying that possibility to herself. Because if there really had been something for Aerith to see there, then everything could start all over again.

"I know," she sighed.

"Isn't it strange though? Think about it, when she was there in the Garden, she said that the Planet had returned her for a cause, for more things to come. But what could it be that brings her back in body to us?"

"I don't know, Cloud," Tifa sighed, stirring cocoa in hot milk, "I don't want to think about it."

"Oh come on, you're her…" he choked over it, "Partner. You should at least consider what might happen in the future."

"No," she shook her head, "I thought about tomorrow once, and all I got was a handful of memories and a broken heart. I don't want to think about tomorrow anymore, I want it to be today, always just today, where there's me and Aerith and no Planet or greater calling or fight for good and justice. We've done all that."

"Tifa, don't get angry with me!"

"Well, why shouldn't I? Be angry, that is. I should be, because we're always expected to do something. Well, that's it, we've done our bit, and it's over. I'm through with it all, the only way I'd ever, ever be dragged into something as monumental again is… is if Aerith was to ask it."

"She'd never ask that of you."

"I know!" Tifa turned around and sat down at the table, next to her friend and stared glumly into the cocoa. The kitchen was small but functional, a square table with a bowl of fruit in the centre, a cooker, sink, fridge and a small washer for their clothes. The tiny window looked out, second floor from her established bar which was becoming world famous for the cocktail, "Midgar Nights".

The guilty truth was, a truth which Tifa knew for fact, that if Aerith was ever to be in danger again, then she would never ask it of Tifa to be there. Moreover, she would do all in her power to remove her loved ones from the equation, leaving it entirely up to her once more, leaving her open once again as she had done in the City.

She didn't want that, she wanted to be there, to protect her this time and always. Wasn't that what she had promised long ago, when this was all new and there had been so much more violence in her battered heart?

"Cloud, I don't know what to do. I don't want to lose her again."

"…" Cloud was just as thoughtfully silent, before he murmured in turn, "Me either."

"If that day comes… I…"

"Tifa, if that day comes, we'll all be right by her side again, without a single thought. There will be people across the world itself who would throw down arms and lives for that girl sleeping in your bedroom, because of who she is, because of what she did and because of what none of us will ever hope to match accomplishment wise. She… she's special, as special to this Planet and to every living creature as the sky, the stars, the sun. Don't worry so much about tomorrow, because when it's here, no one will let her go alone. Ever again."

"Cloud…"

That was possibly one of the longest speeches she had heard him give in a long time and even he realised it, flushing as he looked away with a slight cough, a clearing of his throat in embarrassment.

She smiled, tears filling her eyes but not a single one escaping, "When that day comes," she agreed.

* * *

"Gawd, how boring," she groaned into the papers, trotting along after Vincent in the dusk that was fast becoming darkness on the shores of Nibelheim. They were hurrying towards the town.

How she, Yuffie Kisaragi and future ruler of the Wutai clan nation, had become impromptu assistant to the mysterious and close-mouthed Vincent Valentine who didn't even keep a single ounce of sugar within his home, was utterly beyond her. How he, being an ex-Turk, could have agreed to make Nibelheim mansion liveable once again, clearing out cobwebs and old experiments so it sparkled, she couldn't fathom. How she had been the one who had done all the cobweb sweeping, didn't escape her – she was very much aware that he had coerced her into it with a menacing look, thrusting the duster at her face so she sneezed and her eyes watered up.

But that she had stayed around, that was even less of a mystery.

Back home, by now, as she was twenty one, they would have been arranging her formalised wedding to some boring but promising young samurai, quoting endless yards of old stuffy texts at her, fixing her hair with oils and telling her sternly to stop biting her fingernails, putting her into confining kimonos and painting her face white, traditionally as she oversaw the ruling of her country, with tradition and honour.

That was precisely why she, Yuffie Kisaragi, Materia Hunter and ninja extraordinaire was out and about, following the vampire-like Vincent and throwing herself headlong into every single scrape that came hurtling her way.

That's not to say that she enjoyed the housekeeping part of each little scrape that came with it – the cobwebs had been particularly difficult and resisted all her efforts to move them at first until a few fire spells convinced them otherwise and out they had been shooed along with their spider masters. Now the mansion was a glistening example of fine art, fine paint schemes and restored, beautifully old furniture. It was a testament to her fine degree of taste _(and the stubborn will to add flowers willy-nilly like the Ancient had suggested excitedly over the PHS)._

She'd received calls of course, from her father, telling her that she couldn't just keep doing as she pleased. The world had been quiet and peaceful for so long that in her heart of wildest hearts, she was starting to doubt if there really was any excitement left in the world for her.

So tiredly, she walked through the cobbled streets, holding the sheaf of paperwork that she would sit and wade through with Vincent in the mansion, the radio on so she could hear the latest trend in musical fashion, sometimes even hoping that the Turks would ring up and ask them to do some errand or the other, anything to get out of the mansion and into doing something.

"You know," she said, "The paperwork really isn't that important tonight…"

"Less talking, more walking," was all Vincent said.

Yuffie knew that he never raised his voice above a whisper – perhaps this was part of the reason why she was a little afraid of his stern demeanour and tended to clam up just as asked. Vincent Valentine had conceded to eternal nagging and was now clad in a dark reddish black suit, not unlike that which he wore when he was with the Turks. He had shorn his hair shorter, but not as short as it could be, so the ends brushed his ears and there was still a chunky fringe covering his ruby red eyes. His sole concession to his former life was to retain the long scarf of red-plum that was worn through with bullet holes and the golden arm he still used in place of having said arm removed.

He also walked a little too fast for her own walking speed to match, so she was obliged to hop and skip after him, grumbling to herself as she did.

Yuffie Kisaragi had consigned herself to the fact that she would never really grow any taller. At twenty one, she barely made Vincent's shoulder. She was slender, flat in the chest and boy-hipped. Her hair she still kept cropped short and she wore a more traditional Nin' garb than her previous instalments – a black mask which was hung about her neck, a black shirt with her own clan design on the back _(A fading moon behind a cloud)_ and heavy gloves. She had given up her shorts in favour of something a little longer, and now paraded about in close fitting black trousers with a sort of frontal and back skirt in black, cut high to her hips so they flapped about a little aimlessly. Secretly she had had the inside of the flaps decorated with small pouches where she kept smaller shuriken in razor sharp triangles for throwing, so she was never at a loss for a weapon if her fuuma shuriken ever managed to lodge itself somewhere to not return to hand. Of course, she still wore the traditional Wutai leader headband, a headband that her father wore and her mother probably wore when she was alive.

It was passing the well in the centre of Nibelheim that made her slow, staring at the black clad figure who watched her go past. It was a strange sort of meeting, their heads following one another as she walked after Vincent, not daring to drop behind or stop to question. The rest of the plaza was deserted.

"Vincent," she finally said, stopping with insatiable curiosity, "Someone's watching me."

"Someone?" He rasped in his gravely voice, turning to look back at her. The ruby eyes pinned her to where she was stood, "Someone like?"

"That creep by the fountain," she gestured, looking back, whereupon her jaw dropped.

"There's no one there, stop wasting time," he muttered and started back walking, "And don't lag behind, that paperwork will only pile up if we wait."

"But I saw someone," she protested, then with a start hurried after him, "I really did!"

"…" was the noncommittal reply.

She sulked of course, but the mansion wasn't far thankfully, as those papers in her arms were starting to get tediously heavy. Within a few minutes they had reached the gates and she backing into the iron carefully, eyes scanning about cautiously.

Okay, so what if the vampire-ex-Turk didn't believe her, she honestly had seen that creepy guy by the fountain, she wasn't going nuts. Maybe, she surmised, he was just a strange vision brought on by lack of anything resembling sugar in her diet thanks to the health conscious Valentine, or maybe it had been another Ninja sent here by her father and there was yet another letter of reprimand waiting for her inside.

Vincent opened the door and held it open as she hurried inside.

Then she stopped with a cry and dropped the bundle of papers, so the white pages scattered across the floor, coming to a gentle stop by cabinets and units as Yuffie cupped her hands to her mouth in horror.

The room was decorated with writing, the once cream and pale chocolate paint violated by scribbles in what looked to be drying blood, jagged and ugly against the beautiful décor. The writing continued on and one, the hallway was large, and down the polished floorboards ran a streak of drying blood that drew itself towards the back.

"V-Vincent," she stammered weakly.

The words were very visible.

"I see," he said calmly.

How could he be calm! How could anyone be calm in a situation like this? Nibel mansion was damn near impregnable with the wards and traps and bolts and locks and…and… how could anyone get inside to do this, let alone with… with blood!

The words were… so very clear to her.

**_'Die. Cetra. Die… Cetra…'_**

Over and over it was chanted on the walls, painted lurid and staining all of her hard work. Yuffie felt like screaming. She nearly did so, filling her lungs, when the cold golden fingers of Vincent's non-living hand clamped over her opening mouth and he murmured softly, as soft as he could go into her ear, "We are not alone."

…and with a slithering, something putrid and rotting came crawling from the back, towards them, the source of the red streaks and as it sped up, sensing them, Yuffie wrenched free and screamed.

* * *

"_You have to **keep** looking."_

"_I am. I don't know where to start though."_

"_Things will only get worse before they get better, you know this. This is the cycle of all things, this is your role as Heiress and Protector of this world, to endure this cycle. So you must look… keep looking…"_

_She was stood on the beach, the sandy line melting into the water as her green eyes focused on the far away point of somewhere and somewhen, the distant choked city of Midgar and the water, burning and dying under the face of the sinking sun as it dipped lower and lower to the wavering tide._

_She was made of the wind and the sun, of the sand and the sea and when the stars came out, she would name them, one by one with imperious grandeur and know them, as family, for this world, this life was hers and she had made it, she had willed._

_With a broken heart, she turned away from the shore where Midgar had vanished to be replaced only with rude and small, crudely made huts of wattle and daub, where others now lived and worked the land in their crude way, coaxing out flowers and plants to sustain and to nourish. She left them there across the water and instead looked towards the north._

_With heavy steps she started walking, to the figure who waited, wrapped in the black shroud. Only a pale face was visible, a triangular shaped face. It was beautiful, in the way that Cetra are beautiful, with wide eyes and a pointed chin, with the far away look and the written knowledge of tomorrow in eyes of colours few humans possessed. The hair spun out behind the figure was flaxen and the eyes were a pale amber-green, mixed uncertainly and glittering with the slit pupils that so defined her race._

"_You know you cannot stay." She said, not knowing why she said it._

"_I know. They will come. Sooner or later."_

"_Take the Materia and go then, take it far away and destroy it, so no ill can ever come to this place."_

"_But if I leave here, I will probably never see you again."_

"_I don't mind. Just take it, take it and go. For the best, isn't it?"_

_The woman laughed shortly, "And you would say that it is worth it?"_

"_Isn't it?" She said in annoyance. "Isn't such a thing worth giving up what you can for it? I know you want to stay here but…"_

"…_Then I will go as far as I can, with that. And when I am gone, you'll have your songs and remember me not, for I would be as the wind, passing and gone. Only this world will remain."_

"_My brother would mourn you."_

_The woman laughed again, the sound was bitter and chill as evening winds in winter, "Aye, and well I love him for it. I will go, before the Madness comes, before I can only remember the Materia, and the lure of it."_

"…_I am sorry," she said softly._

_Just then, as they turned to make their way back to the slope of the hills, there was a strange noise. It was decidedly unpleasant and interfered with her concentration…_

_Buzz. Buzz. _**_Buzz. _Buzz**_…_

Groggily she sat up and groped about for the phone. Tifa, as usual, slept like the dead, faced away from her, curled over in their shared bed, stealing the lions share of covers – no wonder her toes were so cold!

After a moment of frantic hand wafting she found the slim black bar and thumbed the keys, only to hold it to her ear. "Mmm?" was about all she could muster, scrubbing shards of sleep from her eyes.

"_Aerith?"_

"Yes, who is this?"

"_It's Vincent. Is Tifa there?"_

"She's snoring, but she's here. Cloud's in the spare room. What's wrong?"

"_I think you all should prepare for a visit from us. Can you make room for an injured person?"_

"Injured?" Aerith repeated, her sleepy brain trying to make sense of this most bizarre conversation at what looked to be five in the morning. "Who's injured? What happened?"

"_Yuffie's hurt pretty badly. And there are some things I think we should all talk about. We'll be there by noon, Cid will be bringing us."_

The phone cut off. She stared at it, her fuzzy thoughts tumbling inexpertly about themselves and the strange dream where she had become someone else, the strange woman shrouded in black and the events they spoke of. Weakly, she flopped back down in bed and stared at the ceiling, hoping for no dreams.

Wishes, it seemed, were granted, for she slept not a single wink more that strange night…


	5. Part Five: Regret

**Heart Less Love**

**Part Five: Regret**

"_The gate of tomorrow is not the light of heaven, but the darkness in the depths of the Earth_."

(( A/N: Yay for the many kind reviews I've received... ))

* * *

_Where she floated, it was dark and cold. There was no light, only the fading brilliance of something that had been sweet and wonderful, only the tortured memories left to plague her._

_What good was knowing, if all that knowing did was to bring disaster, was to bring ruin and to bring empty hearts with empty nothing inside their deserted shells where love had once been housed?_

_She knew neither time nor erosion on the rocks of this frugal living. The cold sustained her, her memories supported her and the aching regret ate away at her for all time._

_Once, in the skies had been silver wings flashing as a roar of engines filled the belly of the beyond, trails of smoke loomed white to the distant, twinkling stars and she regretted nothing. She had thrown it all away and where had it gotten her?_

…_Yet still, there was hope._

_

* * *

_

Her breathing was definitely better.

She exhaled a sigh of relief she hadn't been aware she was holding in, swabbing her hands on the soft towel spotted with blood. A needle and thread lay to the side, glittering strands of her magic fading away into nothing about the thread. A sterilised sheet of white was drawn to the chin of the girl laid in the bed, trying to relax despite sweat staining her brow, matching the spattering of blood droplets on the white sheets about the right shoulder. The black hair was matted with grime, sweat and blood and the smell of the sick wound its way into the room so deeply that she had been forced to open a window to let the chill of the evening into the room.

She had spent all day hovering over the inert, hardly sustained form of the girl- no, Yuffie was a woman grown now- the woman who clung to life by a slender life line. That's right, sometime in the distance between then and now, Yuffie had grown older. That was all part of being alive, she supposed, the getting old, the decaying part.

The wound had been of particular concern however, a smooth puncture hole through the right shoulder and the shoulder bone shattered by the force pushed through the very blade. It was the cause of the buckled collarbone, upwards at an awkward angle that had been pressing dangerously on the oesophagus and preventing the swallowing of frenzied saliva produced by panic. It was otherwise smooth and without any ugly tearing that would denote a serious wound. The loss of blood and the bone that needed setting were the real extent of her practised, polished healing handiwork.

On the opposite side of the bed, Vincent stood like a shadow in the small box room that Cloud had been using as his bedroom in the time visiting. It was frugally decorated, perhaps to fit his bleak nature, she mused a little, with white walls, pale linen covers and the minimum of furniture. The only small nods to vivacity were the pictures of the small tightly knit group of companions strewn over the room. And, she noted with a strange pang in her chest, a vase of yellow nodding flowers.

They seemed to be incredibly important, but she couldn't say why.

"What happened to her?" She whispered, not taking her eyes from the yellow blooms. It seemed always easier now to avoid the accusing, haunted and hungry stares of people, staring right through her to the hidden depths she tried to hide away. "The wound is… unnatural. It's as if something tore right through her in a perfect tubular shape."

"There was a monster in the mansion," he shrugged.

"What did it look like?"

"It was human shaped, but as if in great agony. There was a lot of fur and, as you might have surmised already, tentacles instead of arms. She was too quick to react, rather than too slow. She got to her weapon before I could caution her and ended up getting hit for her troubles."

"I see. If she'd been awake, she could have used some of her own techniques to sustain her wound." She smiled, looking down at the woman who cracked her eyes open briefly in the haze of sleepy after effects that often came beyond surgery.

"She has the soul of a kid," he snorted.

"Ah, Vince, don't tell me you don't like that," she croaked, then tried to sit upright. Aerith placed her hands to the shoulders of Yuffie, imploring her to lie still but at the same time, shocked at how desperately cold the skin of the Nin' was. "I'm alright, really. It'll take more than some dumb attack to keep me down."

"See," Vincent rasped, "She just doesn't know when to be good. Should we confiscate her toys?"

"Back off, Vince, touch my materia and lose your other hand!" Yuffie snapped back, then she blushed rosy red, "I er mean, boss… that is…"

Aerith laughed instead, pulling her hands away, "Well, if she has it in her to snap back at you like that, and still blush like a sunset, then she's right for once I'm afraid. She's already fighting her way to recovery!"

"Yeah, see, us Wutai Ninja, we are made from stern stuff!"

The door behind them opened a crack, and Tifa popped her head around, and then opened the door wider with a smile on seeing Yuffie sat up in bed. Aerith crinkled her a soft little smile, then fought a giggle as a sighing Cloud brought in a tray laden with mugs of Tifa's favourite drink _(though she would die before admitting it openly – it was probably why she always felt the need to foist it on other people)_ – Hot cocoa.

"I thought we could hear raised voices. You're looking a little better, Yuffie." Tifa came over to lean down and peer at the girl, her eyes serious, "But you should really eat more."

"Tifa, you're like a mother sometimes," Yuffie huffed and folded her arms, then winced at herself. "Ouch, not the best idea. Oh, is that cocoa, for me?"

"One mug only. Don't stretch for it, you'll only pull at the wound."

"I won't," to her credit, the ninja actually managed to wait before smiling guiltily, "Besides, Aerith-sama might end up upset and annoyed with me, if I did."

"Aerith, upset?" Tifa laughed well naturedly.

The subject of that small exchange blushed to her roots and took a mug to warm her own chilled hands on. Cloud appropriated a seat for himself on the dresser which creaked a little alarmingly. Aerith watched him get seated, then with a healer's eye, made sure that Yuffie hadn't stretched her bandaging from place too much. It was, however, their martial artist and 'mother' that broached the real subject.

"Now, are you going to tell us what is really going on?"

Vincent glanced darkly at her from under his newly shortened fringe; his eyes were glowing eerie red in the shadows, and then slipping to Yuffie who had paused in sipping her drink, turning pale. The Ancient was mildly surprised to see that the violet eyes were riveted on her in absolute horror.

"…"

"Come on, you know you could have had Yuffie's wound treated by a local Materia Master. Instead, you come all this way just to have Aerith look over the wound. I'm pretty sure it's got something to do with what you're not saying. Or why, Yuffie is looking at my girl like she's going to explode or grow a second head," Tifa grinned and threw a sidelong look in her direction, "You aren't, are you sweetie?"

"I'm trying to give it up," she murmured softly, a wry twist to her mouth, "I find it hard to get in my clothes when I do."

Cloud and Tifa both chuckled at her short little quip, but neither of their visitors said a single word. Yuffie's eyes had fallen down to peer into the swirling chocolate depths of her mug, stung to tears by the rising and pungent steam.

Vincent shifted a little, looking at her directly. "It has to do with you."

"With me?" Aerith said in some surprise, folding her hands, the ridges of her fingertips in the prints still marked with bloody residue. For some reason, the sight of blood on her hands made her feel incredibly queasy. The flutter in her belly told her that this queasy feeling wasn't about to go away either. Vincent was silent, looking at her.

"Once, long ago, many terrible things happened."

Aerith almost wrenched her head, trying to turn and see the speaker – everyone was suddenly frozen, unmoving in the space. It was a man, stood in the doorway, head to foot in a black shroud so she could see not a single thing of him. It was the same figure from the beach visit, she would have sworn her life on it, the lives of everyone and everything she cherished in this world. He was watching her back, without twitching a muscle.

"Tifa, can't you…"

"They can't hear you. Look," he gestured.

She looked. Indeed, they were all still staring at Vincent, hanging on the sentence that was yet to come from his mouth. Tifa's eyes were glazed over, leaned forward to hear with a mug clasped in her hands. She was stuck in splintered time, between the moments of now and then.

"…Wh…what is this magic?"

"Time magic. Don't worry; it was lost a long time ago to us. But more importantly, I have to tell you. Once, long ago, many terrible things happened. But the worst sin we were ever to commit, was a sin you should be familiar with. Don't be frightened."

"Frightened?"

"Are you ready? Are you really and truly ready in your heart of hearts?"

"…" She looked down, "I don't have a choice. I have to be, right?"

"That's the…spirit…" crooned the amused voice as she looked back to Vincent, the figure in the door fading into only shadows, time catching back up with its self.

He looked at her, all glowing red eyes and hollow cheeks, a sorrowful face he tried to hide behind his scrap of a scarf, bled with the blood of many, many years and many, many sins. She looked steadily back at the man called Vincent Valentine, as he began to explain about the writing on the walls of the Nibelheim mansion. Even when Tifa's hand crept into hers, squeezing gently, all she could feel was a strange and gentle regret.

That everything she had done, it was back to this once again.

The fluttering in her stomach, just under the scar, wouldn't go away…

* * *

The house had long since grown quiet, the breathing of people in the restful sleep without dreams filtering through the halls and melding with the sounds of night outside, the night of Edge City.

She stayed by the window, hands upon the sill and her fingertips touching the wood with soft brushes at the grain. Normally, she would be curled up into bed, but watching Tifa sleep for once, had been unable to put her own fears to rest and allow her the oblivion of dark, dreamless slumber. Instead, the night sky with a thousand fires near and far called her, and she stayed there to just watch them, asserting her own place once again in this insanity of living.

The truth was, she knew she should remember it all.

There were large holes in her memory that she could not reconcile with. She had a home, didn't she? But when she went there, she found she couldn't recall her mothers face, or the people of the slums who had lived through the terrible times of Midgar and the Meteor. She remembered Denzel from the time spent in the Life stream, but Marlene was a strange fiction, a girl she should know, but didn't. They spoke sometimes, about things they had done or seen, sometimes turning to her with a smile and a soft 'Isn't that right, Aerith?'

And she'd smile, and nod and go along with it. But really, she couldn't remember it. She didn't remember the ship to Costa Del Sol. She didn't recall the sweltering heat of the Canyon and desert. She knew there were secrets and lies all clouded around Nibelheim, but why, how, she couldn't have said for certain.

She still forgot how to dress the table for dinner. She'd be easily distracted sometimes when ironing and leave the iron standing on clothes, only to hurry back to smoke and wonder where the fire had come from. She cooked instinctively, but couldn't tell when pressed, one herb from the next. The bed was made, but all back to front and the housework done but objects unfamiliar sometimes, like vases or chairs and she would move them around in a haze of forgetting and remembering all in one go. When outside there would be the sound of engines, she would hurry there and find only the blue sky and her distant thoughts tormenting her with noises that no object could represent.

The worst part was the dreams.

In her dreams… she was dying all the time.

Aerith curled her hands into balls, feeling her skin stretch and her eyes narrow at the hands, as if holding them tight would grasp these memories back to her, memories she was afraid of knowing or perhaps never really knowing.

"Aerith?"

She turned her head just a little, but the sense of him was familiar. The strange taste of regret in her mouth whenever he spoke her name like that, the fond way he always stood and the tone of his voice, dry and somewhat unsure. That was all that made up the sensation of a being called Cloud.

"I just wanted to see the sky," she said softly.

"The sky? It is pretty, but the lights here make it hard to see." He came to stand next to her, looking up at the sky, "Light bleeds into the sky, making it reddish. Out in the country, the stars were brighter."

"I think I liked it there, but you take what you can get, here."

"I suppose, when it's all you can get, you can't argue."

"…"

Cloud looked across at her. She kept her eyes on her hands instead – it seemed to her as if every time someone looked at her, she guiltily looked away. What a strange and curious thing. She could meet his eyes, if she wanted to, but for some reason, with everyone, she found herself looking away.

Aerith couldn't stand the image of the 'Goddess' in their eyes, not even in his eyes. That made up dream of someone she wasn't, someone she couldn't be. She was just someone who got unlucky, did lucky things and managed to pull through despite seemingly insurmountable odds.

He said, in a voice as soft as hers, the old voice he had used with her when they had travelled, but how she knew that, she couldn't tell, because no memory could support it; "Are you frightened?"

"Me? Fearless Aerith, frightened?" She laughed, a tinkling silvery laugh, raising a hand to her mouth to do so. That was habit too, a little pang of regret told her. Yes, she laughed into her hand because she was always afraid of spitting when she laughed, what a strange habit. Her laughter slowly faded and she stared at her hand, amazed at recalling such a thing.

Cloud was silent as she, until with such concern in his voice, he said, "You alright?"

"I…" she jerked her green eyes from her hand to meet his faintly glowing blue ones, then looked away frantically, lowering the hand to grapple with the necklace. "I was lost in thought then, sorry."

"It's okay. But really though, something attacked those two and those words…"

"Cetra. So few know to call the Ancients that. But…"

"Many know that you live once again, by the grace of the Planet." He looked across at her, "Aerith, I have to ask."

"Cloud?"

"Will there be more trouble again?"

His heart was in his eyes. The look made her breathless, the sheer worry painstakingly marked across his brow and the faintly quivering line of his lip. She knew, as surely as she knew that she would never be exactly the same as before, that this was not only concern for her and for himself… but for the girl sleeping like the dead in her bed, in the bedroom set furthest back from them.

But what could she say, except the truth? She had never condoned lying, not to her closest friends. No white lie to cover up any failure on her part. Nothing would do. So with a heavy heart, she replied, "I don't know. Probably. You know how it is, you do one good deed, and people expect ten more…"

"You think that way?"

"Oh goodness," she laughed a little, "Well, a little, but not in a bad way. You know, I was dead and I still had to keep an eye on you all. Even when things seemed their worst. It was as if, only I could do something… and deeds after deeds, I'd keep helping."

"Like the rain," he tilted his head, "I remember the rain. It was beautiful. Then, you were there, calling to Kadaj, telling him to come home…"

Kadaj. That's right, she told herself, there was someone called that.

She had reached from the beyond and forever to take his wearied and painful soul back to the life stream. Like everyone before she had helped so willingly, he had reached out to her and crying, called her mother.

Mother.

What was that, where was her mother?

She smiled sadly, lowering her eyes until the eyelashes hid the sparkling green, "My powers to heal. I'm good for things like that, you know, healing, helping…"

"But now with this new threat to you… I…"

"I won't go again," she said softly, "Never willingly."

"I'm sure you said that last time," he retorted. She drew back a little from the sting in that comment, ducking her head away. "Aerith, I mean… I'm sorry."

"It's alright, you know? I'm alright with it. You're all still angry at me, some way or another. I'm surprised Tifa hasn't said anything to me yet about it. I'm waiting, for her to explode on me, like the fire she's made from!" A small smile creased her mouth, a fond smile, "But you're the first to really say something. And I want you to know, I am sorry. I really am, very, very sorry. I wish I had had time to tell you all, but it was all happening so fast and I didn't know what to make of it. The Temple ruins affirmed the deadness in my heart I had feared. When you didn't wake up, time was already running out and I had to go away… I had to."

"You could have waited."

"But you were sick," Aerith looked up at him, "How could I ask that of anyone? So I went, thinking I'd be fine, thinking I was just jumping at ghosts, at nothing. Instead, it turned out the way it did. But, thinking on it, maybe it had to. Maybe I had to… go."

"You didn't have to die, that's… that's just plain stupid talking."

"Is it? Inside the Life stream I was able to command the force of life itself. I could mould and shape the force, the void, and the lives of everything. Otherwise, Meteor would have barrelled through the Planet, aided by the Holy power that the Planet had summoned up. Anguished, in pain, it sought to rid itself of humans because it was finally alone. But if I hadn't been there…"

Cloud looked horrified, "What is that you're trying to tell me."

"That because I died, I was able to stop the Planet from extinguishing itself and you all at the same time. Don't underestimate someone who hands out blame, as you should well know, Cloud." She smiled and rested her elbows on the window sill, looking up to the stars, "It was in agony, all alone, and wanted to punish humanity. When you spent your time lamenting me, instead of punishing others, you placed all the blame on yourself. Whilst all the actions were different, in radical ways, the end result was the same. Destruction. And if I hadn't been there, both of you wouldn't be right now, along with a lot of innocent people."

"I… never thought of it like that."

"So that's why… if tomorrow, there's more danger, if tomorrow I must do yet more deeds, then I'm ready to."

He laughed and she looked at him from the stars. He was smiling, a real smile, showing teeth and crinkling up his nose, a hand into his golden halo of hair. "Aerith," he said in delight, "You really are a star, yourself."

"Cloud," she laughed, blushing.

"Well, alright, whatever comes your way, I'll be there to get in its path first. I promise."

"No promises," she admonished, "Promises are easily broken. Just try, instead. Trying your hardest, I won't be at all disappointed by you. I'll try my hardest too."

"Try, eh?" He rubbed his chin and then turned to look up at the stars too, "Well alright, I can do that. We'll both try our best."

"Of course!" Aerith looked back, examining constellations and starry stellar pathways on the throat of velvet forever and nothing, or something. It was a comfortable silence for a good ten minutes, until he nudged her shoulder and she looked to him. He was looking down on her, smiling a little sadly.

"Hey, did you ever see my mom?"

"In…?" she queried, and then at his nod, she shook her head. "I'm sorry, I didn't. Don't take it badly, but she must have been happy and passed on into the life stream to become something else."

Cloud smiled, "I think she'd be a tree, a willow tree. Mom always liked willow trees."

Aerith smiled, a little regretfully, "So did I."

In wordless companionship, they stayed there as moments passed by, staring up to the stars and seeking their own peace with the events of what might be tomorrow…

* * *

Die Cetra, Die.

_She was turning away, so slowly then. I could have moved._

_I could have done something._

_Instead I sat and watched the world, the sky, the heavens and hell all open up for her and me and my broken, forgettable heart. I watched her fall in sweet slow stances, ticking by as the clock in my heart grew louder._

_I could have._

Die, die, Cetra, please die.

_She ate everything with care and drank only when she was thirsty and even then, never touched a drop of alcohol. She loved the simple things, the simple bits of life. She didn't like meat but wasn't too picky about what she would eat, and could she eat? She ate like it was going out of fashion. Where was it stored?_

_The energy and vivacity she gave to my life. And as soon as it flared into something, it dwindled just as quickly into nothing. Into death, it flew away on silent wings._

_I didn't do anything._

Cetra. Die.

_I spent so long dreaming of her. I spent so long, thinking of her. I spent hours, nursing the cracks in my heart and trying to pretend that each day, each drink I wasn't driving myself closer to ruin, driving myself closer to the edge of despair where only I knew the names and faces of people who lived there. I set up house and home for myself and waited. I waited for you there, to come and take me away._

_You came back to me instead, sweetly smiling._

_And even then, I would hear him snarling even as you forgive him._

_I can't forgive him, so accept that. I hate him. I hate him with all my heart and soul._

_I HATE him. Do you understand that?_

_In my dreams, always snarling, always driving down with the point of glittering diamond blade and always, always saying:_

Die, Cetra, **die**.

…_the fade of her conscious thought into the dream was slow, but she knew at some point the dream had taken over and the nightmares ramblings she endured were gone. Replacing them was instead a wide field of flowers and she was stood, naked and hip deep in flowers of all colours. The sun was bright and the sky the bluest she had ever known it to be, fluffed with clouds and the far sprung cries of birds that wheeled and enjoyed life overhead._

_Tifa ran through the grass and away from the darkening patch of blood where she had once been stood._

_In the distance, she never saw the figure of the lone man in black, watching…_

* * *

Aerith smoothed the dark hair. She had finally crawled back into bed to be with her lover and partner, to find that Tifa had rolled over restlessly in her sleep. Her nightshirt of white and black stripes horizontally was tucked up, it was ridden to her armpits, exposing her soft skin and the boyish underwear she wore to bed, slung low on the cure of her hips. Nothing about her love suggested that she was in any shape or form, boyish; she had curving hips and breasts, an hourglass figure and a heart shaped face. In comparison, Aerith felt slender, skinny and boyish.

She kept smoothing the dark hair, waiting for the dreams that plagued Tifa to go away, gently touching her cheek sometimes in fond motions. The moonlight loved the glow of Tifa's skin and was attracted there, as bees to pollen.

She loved everything about her, she realised with a dull ache in her heart. There was nothing she could find at fault, for of all things in this world, she had come back for her, really. She had given up hopes of the Promised Land, she had given up yesterday and all that she was for her. That was her love, that was how far she would go to lie here, in the moonlight and watch her sleep. Her fingers ghosted over the long dark lashes and then gently traced the curve of the jaw line.

It wasn't long before she was humming softly to herself, the song of a thousand words and none that was once played on the piano that sat not ten feet from where she was on the bed, the ivories tinkling and producing the most beautiful sound she had ever heard. Tifa's heart and soul had been poured into that melancholy void, filled with music, with aching, voiceless need for her.

She answered.

She had come back.

…but now?

Aerith laid down, moving so her nose was touching to Tifa's, her hand sliding down to press itself against the rise and fall of Tifa's chest, feeling the heartbeat hidden behind ribs and flesh. It was steady and pure, it was alive and vital and she loved listening to it, when she slept, lying down in the cool of the night. It was the clock to set her life by. But now, she just felt it thud and felt inexplicably sad.

She didn't know when it was that she started crying.

The tears were cold, her face curiously motionless, for she wept without sound or screwing up her face as many women tend to do. Instead she let the tears drip and fall as they may, cold on her feverish skin and salted as the sea of which she dreamed about sometimes, on a foreign shore, in a foreign world of dreams and sometimes and maybes. She stroked the area above Tifa's heart and whispered.

"I'm sorry."

Because that was all she could ever say now.

She was sorry. Sorry for the uncertain tomorrow. Sorry that she was born a Cetra, an Ancient with powers to heal the Planet and therefore, tied intimately to it, to some alien being. She was sorry she had left, and come back and brought only a handful of broken memories with her. Sorry that yesterday was a stranger with a familiar face. Sorry, sorry, sorry, always and forever, sorry.

But most of all, Aerith was sorry that she loved her, and all her love ever seemed to do was bring about pain and heartache. But she kept on loving, more and more each day, with sweeter pain and sweeter joys. The greatest woe, her undying, unquenchable love for Tifa… and the tomorrow, the uncertain tomorrow it would bring.

Her tears slowly grew hot as she whimpered, curling in close to the sleeping girl, "…Tifa…"


	6. Part Six: Guidance

_(( A/N: sorry about the slowness. I've been very sick. I fainted on saturday -after a recurring run of fainting fits- and was taken into hospital - but thanks for being patient! B xxxx))_

**Heart Less Love**

**Part Six: Guidance**

_"What if all the memories were just a lie?"_

_

* * *

_

One Week Later

The words still rang in her ears. The veiled admonishments and the soft tone used to deliver the ultimatum but however well concealed it was thought to be, it was an ultimatum none the less. She'd smiled at the time, and nodded her head, gripping the hands chilled by fear and stressing with rounded syllables filled with love and faith that everything would be alright.

Then, as she stood at the foot of the Shera, she was forced to reconsider this standpoint.

By her side, steadfast in absence of the one who would take care of her and her distracted ways, were Vincent, Cloud and Cid. Each of them faced to the distant horizon where she was unwilling to place her eyes without flinching back. Their faces were similar masks, set in grim disapproval that remained unspoken but shouted in every line of their bodies, their eyes, that same silence.

Cid had aged gracefully, becoming stockier and less gruff with the gentle restraint of his assistant and unspoken partner, Shera, the very woman he had named his latest airship after. The nameless words between them, she wondered if they would ever be said aloud between the captain and his subordinate who willingly waited, patiently waited, for him to come around. His hair was peppered with white at the sides, lending him a distinguished air and his already lined face was creased with wrinkles on the brow and about his pale, grey-blue eyes. For once, no cigarette hung from his moisture lacking lips. His clothes were of course, rumpled, with the scarf he seemed to favour but was forever cursing as it ended up blowing back in his face at the worst moments when flying the skies.

He had thought of her like the little sister, if not the daughter, he had never had. She was fond of the gruff, plain speaking captain and had often spent her moments talking about her wish to see the world, from so high up.

He had cried for her, when she thought he didn't know how to weep for fear of losing what little control he had left over his own life. That he had come out here with only the vague knowledge that she had to go to this place, to find clues to monster populace resurfacing.

This place.

She looked to the horizon, the trees clustered about the squatting bones, ruins of where a temple had once stood. It was here, where the world met the sky she had spoken with the Planet and managed to unlock secrets of herself, her destiny. It was here, on the crux of this sacred spot she had also come to realise that her dreams were real, and she had only been hotly denying the truth in the hope of another day, of more time.

Aerith swallowed hard, tucking her arms about herself. Faintly, she realised none of the men were looking inclined to start walking towards this place and as she stepped forward, not a single one moved from their spot. Quizzically she looked back, "What are you waiting for?"

"This place," Cloud said, before being unable to find the words and trailing off with a helpless shrug.

"I don't understand, what makes you all so hesitant?"

"This place is where you fell down…" Vincent looked across at Cloud who hung his head, cheeks burning with shame. "Where events happened that escalated that day."

"That day," the blond whispered helplessly.

"Oh…" She murmured.

"Don't take it all personal like, but we can't go back there." Cid fixed her with a look and she hoped briefly he was going to say something opposite to what he did, "Not one of us. It's painful, for us all. You've been gone, you've come back and some things, they're for you alone. So here's as far as we go, little flower, and we'll wait here for you too."

"You'll send me off into that place alone?" She gawped. It was precisely that moment she started to wonder if she should have accepted Tifa's offer of help instead of pointing out that the orphans needed someone, the business, and the flowers to be tended…

_Men!_

"Understand what he's trying to say, please," Cloud pleaded, eyes on her, still bright, still looking to her for the answers for life; she dreaded that look in their eyes sometimes. "It's not that we wouldn't if we could, but we can't, we just can't trespass there."

"There's nothing there."

"It doesn't matter. Maybe you can't sense it," Vincent folded his arms and looked away from her, the horizon and all of it, to the blinding sun high in the sky, ruby eyes squinting shut, "But to us, it's plain as day that we're not for that place. You're just wasting time, arguing over it."

"But…"

"Hurry back. We'll wait."

Vincent seemed to chop off all argument and she felt her inner temperature rising, bringing colour to her cheeks that were already heavily tanned. Instead of glaring at him, or looking for support she stiffened her back with her customary stubborn will and set off towards the bones of a place she had left behind long ago.

Each step, taking her through the grass and through the trees brought monsters to bay. She could see them behind the trunks and in the shrug, their eyes gleaming with captured light but not a single one moved against her. Quite the opposite, they seemed most content to watch her, a bygone figure of a bygone past that lay forever beyond their reach and her heart twisted with sympathy.

Probably, this was why she could never really raise a hand against monsters well except with only the utmost mercy. In her heart, where she locked it all away, she knew they were once Cetra like she, that they once heard the Planet clearly instead of an infuriating garble to their detuned ears, a side effect of the plague, the virus from the skies.

Once, someone among them had played with dolls as their mother called them in for the afternoon. Someone among them had once painted skies and sunsets and the stars above. Someone among them may have created music, hymns or beautiful songs that spoke to the wind. Someone among them was just like someone she knew, or just like her.

So as she walked for the place where the world caved in on itself in the absence of the Cetra made structure, she smiled and gently waved her fingers to the monsters, the wolves, the bugs and the poor creature struck between bull and man. Only within feet of the place where it had once stood, her steps grew quickly leaden and she slowed, stumbling across herself with a lack of grace that wasn't her at all. The sounds of the forest and the eyes of the creatures faded back and she stared without thought at the small bridge, wooden slats and twisted rope that lead into the place where the Temple was.

She knew she'd once laid here in a strange ecstasy, her ears captured by the heartbeat, the voice of the Planet as it crooned to her. She was the beloved of a whole alien world that watched her from afar.

Her eyes rose to where the hole was and she started walking across the swaying bridge, a chasm deep and endless seeming cut into the earth around where the Temple had been. She supposed in the days when humans and monsters hadn't achieved the abilities needed to fly, that it was a suitable defence mechanism for the temple, to cut the bridge so no outsiders could enter.

But before such things could be employed, they had passed away leaving only caretakers to wander like ghosts in the halls of a crumbling and weed choked prison.

Thoughts of a strange rotund man in purple flooded back to her and she paused on the brink, looking to the heights where steps should have fled up to, reaching for the stars above. That was right, there had been a fellow decked out in purple, with a strange growth of hair on his face, talking to her in… pictures and feelings.

He was dead, too.

Then it was that her eyes slowly fell down to the chasm, the gulf of separation from the heights of yesterday to the stark reality of today. The pit yawned vast, the sides ragged with outcrops of rock still barren of any form of weed life.

It was down there that she had curled up.

Why was she curled over, defending her face? There had been someone, crouched over her, flailing with his fists. Then, there was nothing, fading away into her skin and oblivion but the word had lived on. His name, the name of the man who had beaten her so viciously, came quickly to mind.

"Cloud?" she said softly.

She dumped her jacket and turned to clamber down the walls to the bottom, no mean feat when wearing a full skirt and a particularly awkward cowl front shirt, all in crème and all just begging to be dirtied up beyond repair _(and directly into acidic comments from Tifa about her not being a washer woman.)_

It was almost to the bottom when she lost consciousness. She didn't even feel the thud of her head on the rocks at the bottom.

* * *

"_What are you looking at?"_

_She looked away, her strange thoughts subsiding into the presence of now. The woman stood by her shoulder was taller than she, a man with a face as familiar as each breath she took by the tall woman's side. She looked from one to the other with slowly forming recollections. Another figure, with her dark hair like the weave of night, hair that both she and the man had, and green eyes that sang of life yet despite such vibrancy, the face was worn and lined by cares and woes._

_Those eyes drew her and pinned her, more than the strange reptilian like eyes of the tall woman with the long pale hair. She smiled faintly, apologetically almost as she turned back from the construction of the temple._

"_I am sorry; I was away with the fairies."_

"_Addle-pated sister," the man said in amusement and she found herself colouring, but amused too. He had called her such since childhood. It was a warm glow that she welcomed._

"_I can't help it, this plot of land; it's so close to the Planet." She laughed, "Don't you feel at all giddy with it? I do."_

"_A little," he confessed and she was laughing too._

"_Children," the stern faced woman chided, hands folded serenely at her waist as she came to stand at her side. The dark hair was worn twisted about a tiara of a kind, a special headdress worn by the Priestesses of their culture, those with the greater skill to speak to the Planet. Priests wore similar artefacts but about their lower faces. Her headband was designed to scroll about her eyes with stars and tendrils of clouds._

_One day, she would wear a headdress like this and turn her face away from mundane matters to spin the earth, the delve the greenheart and to speak with the Planet, sing with it and pray with it so those prayers would ring from the furthest star. She, like this proud woman at her side, would give her life up to become a caretaker for the Planet and the future of their race and culture._

_She was smiling._

"_But," the woman continued, "The construction is coming along far quicker than we had expected."_

"_A tomb," the sultry voice of the taller woman throbbed, "A final resting place for that which should never have been."_

_She felt a little stab of resentment and turned to watch her brother, the man, curl his arm about those thin shoulders of the pale ghost. The golden eyes swelled with tears and she instantly felt ashamed of herself for even that brief stabbing agony of jealousy, the dark thorn in her whitest heart._

"_Do not be sad," her brother said softly, "It will all come for the best, you shall see."_

"_Arkilles is right," she said with confidence, to try and cover for that small blunder only she could know of, "This place will entomb that evil forever and you shall never have to be afraid again."_

"_Will it really?"_

_She found herself staring into the golden eyes and nodded, her loose dark hair forming bouncing ringlets about her slender, oval face. "Yes."_

"_The temple is a puzzle," the older woman chimed, green eyes fixed on the labour and construction site, "it is intricate and set between both Space and Time."_

"_How is this so? Why, is anyone solves it, they can just walk away wi-"_

"_Not so, do not discredit our knowledge so, child." She smiled, skin wrinkling into laughter lines beneath the upper mask, "The puzzle is a dangerous toy to try and trick. When you solve even a mere section of it, it grows smaller. The temple being the whole puzzle shrinks. In order to retrieve the star jewel, they must sacrifice their own life, defeating the object of gaining the jewel. Do you see? We do not hide precious baubles in plain sight for little cause. Fret not; we know that which we do."_

"…_As you say, Honoured Daughter," the woman murmured._

_Arkilles shot her a look and she sighed slightly. She had no clue as to what else to say, so she turned her attention to the land they had chosen for this temple. It was a lush land, of grass and verdant trees thickening the ground from mountain high to the shores where the sea ravaged and ate the land. The temple was hidden in a grove of trees, tucked away from the sight of predators and marauders who may pass by._

_It was invariably close to the Planet, for all the places she had visited across the world, none had been so close to the voice of the world as this spot and so it was that those who would guard the jewel with spells to extend their lives, would ever be in touch with the Planet._

_It made her a little sad, to contemplate that their isolation might indeed cut them off from any kind of civilised mode of speech, but also made her envious at how close they would become entwined with the world._

"_It is an honour," the older woman said softly._

_She started, surprised that her inner most motivations had been reasoned out by the woman stood beside her. The woman laughed gently, covering her mouth delicately to do so._

"_You shouldn't read my thoughts," she muttered grumpily._

"_I did not, your face registers every emotion that you feel." She chuckled, "It is a good thing to know such simplicity still exists in the world."_

"_Are you calling me simple, now?"_

"_Well, simple and pure, not simple and stupid. You worry too much, this place is good."_

"_I… I suppose… oh, what's that?"_

_She pointed with a slender finger, shocked a little at how thin it was – didn't she enjoy eating like tomorrow would never arrive? It pointed toward a slab of rock, followed by several others, being manoeuvred into the pit of the temple. On the slabs were intricate carvings of some event, with side views of people engraved in the rock as well as something falling from the sky?_

"_That is a warning," the older woman said softly, "And should dire events come to occur, the last empty slab will record everything. One of the scribes we have chosen to guard this place will record it, and we… and whatever may have become of the world."_

"_Why?"_

"_As fool proof as the temple is, to the naked eye, there is a possibility it may be breached into. The warning stands, for future generations, against malicious use of the jewel. To guard it, when you or I have gone."_

"_We'll pass the knowledge down though, won't we? Through the Teachings?"_

"_One day, maybe there will be no Teachings to pass."_

"_What!" Again, shock registered quickly on her face and the woman soothed her with a hand to her shoulder, rubbing against the bone and skin. "But…"_

"_I said, maybe. It is not certain, but best to cover all possibilities, right?"_

"…"

"_Now, tell me, what worries you really?"_

_Nervously she tucked a ringlet of dark hair back behind a slightly pointed ear and then she glanced, just a touch nervously, towards the walking figures of the pale woman and Arkilles. Her baby brother no longer, should she no longer worry for his wellbeing?_

"_I just… do not trust her."_

"_Your trust is and always has been, hard to earn."_

"…_I just have the worst kind of feeling when I look at her."_

"_Oh?" Those green eyes were speculative, scourging her to the depths of which she was, "Is it because there really is something you find fault with her for… or is it because she loves your brother, and he loves her?"_

"_W…What?" She hissed, "No, nothing of the sort!"_

"_Is it not? You were the centre of his 'universe' as I recall from your childhood together. His eldest sister, she who could do no wrong. Now he has another for that pedestal of his…"_

"_I don't need to hear you analyse my life, Honoured Daughter, I… I'm going back to the boats."_

_She turned with a whirl of her traditional skirt and began making her way towards the forest, ignoring the sudden and angry tears in her eyes. The gaze of those penetrating green eyes faded from her back the further she broke into the shrub and fought through it. The sting of branches, slender and supple whipping back into her face brought no relief from the nagging pain in her heart._

_It was true; she had once been the focal point of her brother's attention as a rising star, a sure candidate for the honoured and beloved post of Handmaiden, then on towards Priesthood. She was a Handmaiden now, still learning the ways of the Planet and her own talents._

_But then, the woman has arrived on wings of silver and everything had changed, her whole world had changed about her and soon enough her beloved little brother had begun to fade from her side to the side of another. No longer was that 'pedestal' hers and no longer could she have his and all others love from their small community. Not since she had come to be._

_She knew this was irrational jealousy and that the woman, like many things, would be sure to pass. This was all momentary, transitory to her natural path to being a Priestess and wearing the mask._

_Even with the words stinging in her ears and her own logical explanation for such feelings, she was still unwilling to set them so easily aside. She felt so uneasy around the woman that sometimes she wanted to weep, sometimes she wanted to cry. Never had she tried to explain this before to anyone, not until that moment at the temple and to be scorned so for her own feelings…_

_Her skirt caught on the scrub and she tugged at it, weeping and trying to get free. It was insanity!_

"_Why did she even come here?" She sobbed, turning into the wraithlike hands of branches that scratched and held her, shaking her until her storm of weeping grew fierce and she fought. She fought against their restraints and tugged, writhed even, in their monstrously strong grip. "Why!"_

_Voices called to her, she did not know them, but they made sense, they called from a distance with the sound of a hollow wind and she wept._

"_Aerith?"_

_Earth? Air? Which was it… which was she?_

"Aerith, wake up…"

The pressure of fingers should bruise her delicate skin and after another hearty shake, she opened her eyes to a world of white and blue skies, the silver of an airship and faces of three men crowded about her as she stood knee deep in the water. A dull pain throbbed on the side of her head and she stared at them.

"Are you alright?"

She knew them. The vision faded, pungent and strong still and as she opened her mouth to explain, she shook her head wearily and waited in silence for the tears to stop.

They took their time.

* * *

The blanket wasn't exactly clean, nor was it exactly dirty and it smelt of the engine, of the air and beyond so she snuggled into it, glad of the warmth. Her clothes, wet, were hung to dry on the warm wall that was right next to the engine room where she could hear the workers piling coal into the engines to keep them working. She was clad in an overlong workers shirt, blue and hemmed with white. Cid proclaimed that Shera loved the colours and had bulldozed him into making all uniforms match – but she would have bet gil just as easily on it being that he had done so, simply because she liked the colours.

Her hands were wrapped about a mug of cocoa, not made lovingly from thick cream and real chocolate like Tifa would have done, but from granules of hot chocolate fished from a particularly suspicious looking tube in the cupboard in the mess. She didn't argue, it was hot and it brought to mind the dark eyed girl and banished the strange disjointed sensation that was rife in the air about her.

The three men watched her, sat in the captain's room on the Shera.

They had found her, wading to her hips in the water, crying but with blank eyes, misted over with green so it appeared as though she had no pupil in her eyes. They said they had glowed brightly, blazing like the lifestream. She didn't know what to say, only allowing herself to be led in silence to the ship where the tears had slowly trickled to a stop.

"The temple," she said softly, breaking into the silence and the hum of the engine, "It was there that they hid secrets."

"What kind of secrets?"

She flicked a glance from the cocoa to Vincent, "Many secrets. Old secrets, about this Planet, about my race." Aerith took a deep breath, "I went there, looking for any answers the Planet might have to give me. It gave me answers, alright. I fell, into the pit."

"That explains the blood," Cloud murmured, looking a strange shade of white.

She guessed he was trying to forget his own abusive actions that had led to her being injured and his extended coma at the Temple and later, Gongaga village. Gentle fingers probed the wound which had mostly healed over, the best she could do when shaken from her own natural calm. It was crusty with blood, but a remnant of where she likely struck her head on the unfinished rocks at the bottom of the chasm.

"Right," she agreed, "But I don't think I passed out. I think it showed me a vision, but unlike witnessing something, I was a part of that vision. In the vision, I saw the Temple when it was being constructed."

"That was likely a long time ago then," Vincent said, tugging on his scarf.

"I think it was… around the time of the Calamity, before the Wounding of the Planet. There were a lot of people there, Cetra, all speaking to the Planet, as well as a woman who I knew to be some kind of Priestess. I don't think it's a formalised religion, so much as a scale of people who are devoting their life and future to the Planet. I… revered her greatly. I knew that whoever I was in this vision was also destined to advance among that religious hierarchy with the Planet. There were others… and the murals."

"Murals?"

"Don't you remember?" She glanced between the men, feeling surprised.

"Hah, surprisin' that we don't remember yet she does, but can't recall how t' cook without burnin' it t'cinders!"

"Thank you, Cid," Aerith murmured dryly, blushing to her hairline as the Captain chortled that dirty little laugh he saved for embarrassing her – and she was embarrassed pretty easily. "But he's right. I am a bit… shocked? In the Temple, the room with the murals was where the Black Materia was kept. It was also where they recorded the events of the Calamity."

"Jenova."

"Precisely. And some of the slabs were vacant… I couldn't make out what they said, but the old Priestess said they would be written on in the future, for future generations to read and understand what had come to pass. But…"

Cloud sighed, "But only you survived."

"Yes. A remnant of a remnant, I suppose. But it was enough, I knew enough then." She looked into her cocoa. "I don't know what the Planet was trying to tell me, but it seems like I have a way to go before I know exactly what the message is."

"And about Yuffie and the attack?"

"I don't know." She shook her head. "But I think it has to do with… remnants. Fragments of things. I can't place my finger on it. I think… it's something I said once, or something I did, that will be the key to Yuffie. The key to the rest of it? Those riddles lie with the Black Materia."

"The Black Materia was lost in the North Pole, along with Sephiroth," Cloud sighed and scrubbed a hand through his blond hair, "So, what do we do?"

"Go look for it," Vincent shrugged.

"You make it sound like it's a picnic."

"Only if you insist on gingham blankets," came back the dry, unruffled reply.

Aerith giggled into a hand, the expression on Cloud's face was inexplicably hilarious at Vincent's rebuttal. But there was truth in his statement; they would have to go look for it. The riddle, the clues to these attacks and the visions lay in the materia itself. A riddle she had to unravel, especially if she wanted to sleep comfortably at night.

"I think he's right," she said softly, earning a hard look from Cloud and a loud guffaw from Cid, who seemed to think her destroying Cloud's hopes of peace and quiet to be absolutely hilarious. "No, really… we'll go find it."

"Are you serious?"

"Very."

"What about Tifa!"

"Oh, she'll come along too of course." Aerith winked, smiling broadly, "You know she won't let me go anywhere without _adult_ supervision."

"I'm an adult!" Cloud sputtered in mortification, and she laughed with the rest of them.

* * *

"_**ACHOO!"**_

She rubbed her nose with a finger, feeling sheepish, especially after blowing away all the paper cut outs she'd spent hours doing with Denzel and Marlene. Her eyes watered a little.

"Nice sneeze, Tifa!" Denzel laughed.

"I'm sorry," she replied, blushing.

"It's okay, I'll pick them up!" Marlene piped up cheerily and began hunting for the paper pieces as Tifa dug about in her pocket for her handkerchief. "Are you getting a cold?"

"No, probably some beautiful girl talking about me somewhere," Tifa grinned back, wiping her nose.

…_or talking me into trouble… again…_ she thought wryly.


	7. Part Seven: Paths

**Heart Less Love**

**Part Seven: Paths**

"_Strength without determination means nothing, and determination without strength is equally useless…"_

* * *

The click of the door alerted her to the fact that someone had entered the apartment and the following clicking of boots on the floorboards was a sure give away. She smoothed down her hair, mocking herself a little mentally for still being nervous despite having lived for so long with the girl of her dreams. Marlene and Denzel were crowded over the table, putting together the decorations for a party.

Soon enough they came around the doorframe and she smiled, beamed almost, upon laying eyes on the oval face of her angel, marked with lines of weariness about the eyes and a a suspiciously dark stain on the side of her head that dampened her golden brown hair to rust. But the green eyes were filled with love and an apologetic hesitancy that kept her by the doorframe, holding her skirt a little and one hand caught in the tangle of the necklace.

"Aerith?" She said, looking from the flower girl to Cloud who came in after her, groaning and stretching so that Denzel noticed and chirped his name, in the same kind of worship he'd been lucky enough to have devoted to him from the day Cloud had found him.

The day that Aerith had guided a lonely and hungry boy to the loving and desperate arms of two equally lonely and broken people…

"I'm alright, don't worry," Aerith replied softly, coming to sit down on the small thick rub in front of the fire, curling her legs to her chest and tilting her head so she could peer into the flames. The firelight flickered on her face, licking the curves of such beauty. Tifa rubbed her arms. She hadn't noticed how dark it had become outside.

"Vincent and Cid?" She asked of Cloud instead.

"Cid's setting up his permit and Vincent won't be long behind."

"Ah, I'll make a hot drink then?"

"Hot chocolate," Aerith's voice pleaded from the fire and hearth.

Tifa knitted her brows, "Of course, not a problem. I know you like it. Hot chocolate, kids?" She called, gesturing to Cloud as she made her way to the kitchen. She wore loose clothing, a tightly fitted black shirt with a white cross on the back and her somewhat baggy trousers with the black bow-ties done up on either leg. Barefoot, she padded silently into the kitchen with the affirming cries of the kids for hot sweet drinks.

"I'll take any food you have going," Cloud offered in what she supposed he thought was a helpful manner, but she just fixed him with a wry and amused look.

"Cloud, if I wanted a portable vacuum then I would apply for a Typoon materia offshoot from Yuffie."

"Hey, that's sort of insulting; I at least put the food to good use. I'm energetic and… stuff. And more to the point, starving. I think it's the cold."

"It's summer."

"The _unexpected_ cold?"

"Just so you don't go on and on at me, I'll make you something. But this is a one off deal alright?" She pulled open the fridge and hauled the crock of cream out that she stored there for the hot drinks she called her 'guilty little pleasure' and set the jug on the counter. It beaded almost instantly as she went looking for her pan that she always used for the drinks. "Probably just something cold, like left over chocobo."

"You still have that?"

"Waste not, want not. So, what's up with Aerith and where did that wound come from?" She straightened with a pan in her hand and smacked it there most suggestively whilst eyeing him levelly.

"Woah now, that wound is completely not my fault so don't start getting that look!" He shrugged, "She had a vision."

"A vision?" Tifa paled, "Not like…"

"No, not the Planet. She said she was someone else, somewhere or perhaps some when else would be closer." Cloud itched his neck, eyes roving over her perfectly neat and tidy little kitchen, "She was so wrapped up in it that she almost waded into the water to her head and beyond. Luckily Vincent spotted her and we dragged her out. She put up one hell of a fight."

"I see…"

"Of course, that's where the discussion comes in."

"Discussion?" Tifa said softly, fearing the very word. Discussion usually meant that trouble was around the corner.

"About why we have to go on a journey," Aerith said softly.

Tifa swung, as did Cloud, both of them pivoting to stare at the doorway where she stood, hands clasped to her throat and watching them with sad, distant green eyes. She hadn't seen eyes as far away as that since the time when they had been journeying together and it frightened her, it frightened her that something was going to take this girl away from her. Again.

"We do?"

"You're going to let me go alone? I will go, whether you come with me or not."

"…Where? Why?" Tifa slammed the pan onto the cooker, feeling foolish, "I mean, why can't someone else go and do it?"

"Because I'm the only Cetra left." Aerith flinched a little and bent her head, "I know you find it really hard to accept, but there are other things for me to do. Don't you remember what I said to you, when I came back? Among those flowers, I said, 'The Planet brought me back for some purpose'. My job isn't over."

"…" Tifa ran hands into her dark hair and sighed in aggravation. "I know."

"I'm sorry… I understand it's hard for you to accept this, but this… this is reality. This is the world I live in."

"Am I not… part of that?"

"Of course, I mean… I just…" The ancient sighed and brushed a hand along the necklace, "I'm not like you, or Cloud or even Vincent. There are parts of me even I don't know…and so much has changed."

"…"

Aerith left, leaving her there to stare down at the mug in her hand. She felt the old burning prickle behind her eyelids and shot an angry look across to Cloud who lifted his hands, his own expression weary and tormented by the same fears that daunted her.

The love that had spent months travelling with them all had certainly come back a changed person. It wasn't just the memory problems. She said the voice of the Planet was stronger, even her natural powers seem to be enhanced beyond a level that Tifa could ever recall them being. Even back then, Aerith had bordered on the miraculous, reviving a person from the brink of death to full recovery. There was nothing that she could not touch and restore.

"…"

"The cream's boiling over," she said listlessly, her appetite for the rich drink fading with the cold biting uncertainty in her gut. "Grab it off the hob, Cloud, don't look so lost."

"Yes ma'am," he almost saluted and with a flourish of his hand snatched the cream from any further danger, placing it on the heat treated mat on the small wooden kitchen table that seemed to eat up far too much space in her cosy little kitchen.

The uncomfortable silence was broken by the sound of laughter from the other room, the laughter of children and Tifa looked up to Cloud, who was looking at the doorway with thoughtful eyes. She murmured, "Tomorrow came a bit too quickly."

"Quickly? It's been months, Tifa."

"Has it? The time has flown by… I thought it was all over for… all of us finally. Now she's being hauled away and damn it all, Cloud, I'm angry… I'm so angry about this. And you know what?" She slammed the mugs down, "I'm so pathetic that I'll lie to her. I'll lie and laugh and hold her and tell her that I don't mind when inside I'm dying with the anticipation of her vanishing again."

"You know," he said, "She was so happy."

"Huh?"

"Happy that you would be going with her. The first thought was 'Tifa's coming with me' and she was smiling," Cloud gave one of his rare, crooked little smiles, "And it was nice to see. She loves seeing the world, no matter how dangerous, and she wants to see it with you. Stop focusing on the bad stuff and support her, because she needs that."

"This isn't happening," she groaned, "This is my nightmare – being lectured by Cloud Strife about relationships and supporting people!"

"Now _that **is**_ insulting… twice in less than an hour, have you been practising?"

Against her will, relief breaking through her anxiety, Tifa began to laugh weakly and started making the hot chocolate. He was right of course, an adventure with all of her friends again, that would be more than worth it. And tomorrow? It could wait for another day…

* * *

"You're feeling better?"

The soft and soothing voice of the Ancient was her only alerting noise that she was no longer alone in the small apartment room that Tifa kept for guests. Her eyes, dark grey-violet like the brief press of an oncoming storm travelled to meet those of the flower girl, eponymous heroine that had pushed back countless dangers and turned the tide of war and strife always in their favour. The eyes of the Cetra were calm and unruffled, the face smooth as marble and like the faces on old statues she had sometimes seen, beautiful and distant.

Her hand grazed her shoulder, the tug of stitches almost gone now with the miraculous spells and techniques of this slender twig of a woman. Yuffie smiled just a little, moving away from the apartment window, the light outside giving everything little colour, only bleached subtle tones variegated depths and distance.

"Better, thanks to you. I know, you've come to ask what you couldn't in front of the others, right?"

"You're perceptive."

Yuffie sighed, sitting down on the edge of the bed and tucking her hands between her legs. The skin felt cold, no wonder, for she wore little more than a white shift that echoed unpleasantly of hospital gowns and the hand-me-out night wear that they always had on hand for emergency cases, trauma victims.

Of course, she knew that Aerith Gainsborough, the last Ancient and therefore by right, Lady Gainsborough under the traditions of Wutai, had been itching to her ask her this question for the longest time. She knew it as much as she knew the sun rose, east to west, the sky changed like her mood and the night always brought dreams. Since the moment on the shores when they had come away from fighting the monster body of Jenova on the boat to Costa del Sol from Junon, she had known that it would come, willing or unwilling, to haunt her.

"So ask, ask it. You know you have to know it, right?"

"…"

"Really, I'm ready for it."

Aerith didn't move, just those sweet and sad green eyes haunting the shadows of the door where she stood, "Yuffie, are you part Cetra?"

"I don't know." Yuffie sighed, "See, not much of an answer I guess. If I have any Ancient blood in me, it's really diluted, to the point of uselessness. I know you've been wondering since that day…"

The moment where she had fired off her simple healing magic without aid of a materia, the widening of shocked green eyes amidst the madness and fright that had beset the flower girl. It was that moment that Yuffie had come to realise that mastery of any magical element outside of Materia and Cetra was almost unheard of, apart from special cases such as Vincent where the magic mutated inside.

"Do all ninja use such arts?"

"…not really. I think I get it from my mother. But she died when I was so young, in the war between Wutai and ShinRa, world powers going for more money, more land. I can't even remember her face. She was the village doctor, and after she died we had to draft in someone else, but everyone always said that there was no one who could heal as well as my mother." Yuffie stared at the floor, "I wish I could help you, tell you that you're not alone. But even with what I can do, healing and destroying with skills outside of materia, I am … a remnant of a remnant… of a remnant even!"

"…I had to know. I had to ask, I am sorry, I didn't mean to draw up painful memories."

Yuffie laughed, covering up her welling sadness with the jovial sound, "No, that's okay, really. So, what did you find out there?"

"I found that I know so little, even now." Aerith turned and sat down on the bed next to her, but the springs hardly seemed to shift with the feathery weight pressed upon them. "The world has many secrets left still."

"Secrets are good."

"Not this time. The Black Materia, where it fell when Sephiroth died at the North Cave, I have to go there."

"_Woah**, what**_?" The ninja girl stared at her, "Are you sure?"

"Absolutely."

"…Oh. What did Tifa say?"

Aerith was silent for a moment and briefly she wondered if she'd said something wrong. Then the girl just laughed and held her necklace, looking sad and distant, her gaze through the window to the light beyond. In that moment, Yuffie knew that whatever claim she had to even a drop of Cetra blood would never compare to the gift and curse granted to the woman, slight and splinter slender beside her. And that, she concluded, was a good thing.

"She'll go with us all."

"Us?" Yuffie stood up, trying to ignore the jab of pain in her shoulder, "And by us, you included me, right?"

"Yuffie… with that wound…"

"Wound-schmound, besides, the materia all belongs to me. You wanna use it? Then you all have got to take me along, simple as that! Besides," She clipped her nose with a thumb and attempted the cocky stance and grin that Cid often used, "Where would you guys be without my superior fighting skills?"

"How could I ask others to go, when it could be so dangerous?" Aerith sighed. "A big adventure together again, that's great, but this could really be it. This could be even more dangerous than the last time."

"Well, here's a hint."

"Hmm?"

"Don't go praying in strange places this time!"

Aerith blinked those brilliant green eyes at her, looking a little shocked then as it sank in that the nin' girl was joking with her she began to laugh. Gently at first, but soon, hand on her chest and middle, she was laughing whole heartedly.

* * *

Vincent was a dark shadow on a slightly less dark wall, for some reason no matter where he stood; he seemed to have the habit of making the place look untidy. Cloud often wondered if this was simply natural talent on his part. He even wore a sharp business suit and with his hair cut, he continued to maintain that very special and unique talent of his. It made Cloud want to yell at him to sit his ass down, but when that ran through his head, it was comically chased by the vision of another ten years down the line and he'd just the chain smoking, foul mouthed man that Cid is.

Instead, to prevent such actions, he leaned next to Vincent and folded his arms, trying to mimic the talent of the silent man with ruby eyes and consequently as he lacked such a natural skill, failed miserably. He only managed to look uncomfortable with his backside grazing a very rude bump on the knot work of the wooden panelling.

"Tifa is going," grated Vincent.

"Of course she is. You know she can't bear to let Aerith take a moment away from her."

"Fear."

How did he manage to do that, too? Cloud wondered. He managed to make the most simplest of statements speak entire volumes, epics of meaning and even the single word oozed feeling and acres of understanding. Then again, the blond had come to associate anything longer than two sentences from Vincent as marking a sign of some new apocalypse.

Beggars could not be choosers…

He wasn't entirely sure that was the phrase he wanted. Yet again, the Mini-Cloud/Cid combination ran through his mind and he sucked in a breath of air.

""Fear of losing her, a strong motivation, but you know Aerith wouldn't appreciate being swaddled to her armpits in cotton wool, no matter how well intentioned it is."

"Possibly."

"Possibly? That girl loved her independence and in some ways, still does. I think Tifa has to try and realise she won't vanish again."

"Love hurts."

"Speaking from experience?"

"…"

Cloud sighed, "Well, either way, her mind is set and that leaves one large problem that she hasn't gotten her head around just yet. The kids. Where are we going to take them?"

"Corel."

"I'm sorry, that one slipped me by a little fast there." Cloud looked sidelong at Vincent, who slowly creaked as he leaned forward to take a mug of hot chocolate in his hand. He eyed said drink with a vague rumble in his stomach – he'd devoured his earlier and promptly burned his tongue. He couldn't help it, he was a growing boy…er… man…

"Barrett's in Corel. Marlene is his daughter."

"Oh yeah," The blond sighed and looked up to the ceiling with the lights inset into the wooden slats, "I'd forgotten about that. I guess Cid should at least radio through to him and inform him that his daughter and Denzel are visiting."

"Done."

A brief flicker of annoyance sparkled in him and he folded his arms tighter, the smell of the hot chocolate was really making him hungry. "Do you guys have to think of everything? I bet he said he wanted to come too." Vincent nodded. "But realised now he's the Mayor that he can't run off at a whim." Vincent nodded again. "Poor Barrett, kids and a mayoral job. I'm sure it's the stuff novel and short story nightmares are written of."

"Aerith?"

"Hmm?"

The ruby eyes slid to him, "How has she been?"

"Distant. Sad. A little distraught. The little argument between Tifa and Aerith was interesting to watch. There really is nothing like watching the power struggle in a relationship." Cloud chuckled, "The one calling the shots is definitely Aerith."

"Figured as much."

"Hey, do the kids know where we're going?"

"Yep."

"And why?"

"…yep."

"Oh." He shoved from the wall and looked about, feeling tired and old suddenly. "I wonder how they felt about it, knowing that bad things will happen again. I bet Marlene will be worried. Anyway, I'm going to help the kids pack and then start on my stuff. Are we going by airship to wherever Aerith points us?"

"Of course. I love to travel in 'style'." Nothing about Vincent's face or tone of voice suggested sardonic wit, but the suggestion was in the precision of his sentence. Cloud laughed.

"Don't let Cid hear you say that." He turned to go, then looked back, eyes on the steaming mug, "…are you going to drink that?"

"…Maybe," Vincent lifted the cup to his lips.

"Spoilsport," Cloud muttered.

* * *

She played.

The music was alive and she lived each shivering note, each decadent fall.

She played to the highest note and dove deep into her melancholy on the furthest chord. The stars sang out their desires with each roll and wave of notation she played with fingers deft, supple and sure.

The music was recorded on no sheet, no dots or lines to hold the sweet cadence tonight.

She played from the heart, from the pain she lived, she loved, she knew like none other for tonight, this night, her pain was a second skin and she needled herself with it, she needed it and loved, lived it.

The words came from nowhere, her voice a gentle contralto and warm but bittersweet, like the falling of leaves after an exceptionally beautiful summer, the memory of such beauty that would not come again and that sadness she sang with, she captured.

_She came to me when I was broken  
__An angel sent to save my soul,  
__And strings once cut she took them up  
__From ashes made me whole._

_From yesterday until the dawn  
__She made the demons go away  
__And on the shores where nowhere is  
__Came with her a brand new day._

_Until she went away, you see  
__And left me there in sorrow,  
__Said, "Take these dreams, I have no need  
__Of them in what is tomorrow."_

She hammered the clauses, the sentences, the nail on the head with the melancholy jibe and diatribe she ranted and raved in sweet dissonance. She played with madness, with love, with aching need and the chorus, the verse and bridge, it drove her away somewhere else.

_The journey is always long for her  
__But for her, I am her rest  
__And what lacks in me I find in truth  
I__s reflected in her best._

_Whatever came, whatever went  
__Whatever yesterday had held for us,  
__We gave it away with two loving hearts  
__Entwined with loving trust._

_Until she went away, you see  
__And left me there in sorrow,  
__Said, "Take these dreams, I have no need  
__Of them in what is tomorrow."_

A familiar prickle, a toughened burn on the backs of her lids and still the ivories tinkled and still from somewhere she played allegro, she played the piece piano. Softly, softly and forever with fingers that knew the saddest bridge and slowest phrasing, she wept and played, piano.

_Tears for tomorrow, for what might have been  
__Tears for sorrow, for every little dream  
__How could you take it all away, how could life do this?  
__When I thought I'd found a paradise, my Idaho, my bliss  
__And to the grave consign my heart, watery and blue  
__And take away the yesterday, I might have had with you.._

_She went away, away, you see  
__And left me there in sorrow,  
__Said, "Take these dreams, I have no need  
__Of them in what is tomorrow…"_

She bent her head, fingers falling numb as the apartment deathly silent in the aftermath of her music, heart wrenching and soulful. The tears dripped from her nose and chin to the keys, splattering there.

She made no move to wipe them clean, let the tears rest there for all she could care. Tomorrow was coming too quickly, tomorrow was coming far too fast. She could feel the time bomb waiting to go off, ticking silently, stalking her and only her. Would it all end up the same way?

"Tifa."

She jerked around on the piano stool, wiping her face furiously.

In the doorway, silhouetted by the light of evening lamps beyond the open apartment window that spread morning light often into their hallway, there stood her love, her dream and her only desire. The green eyes were sad, sweetly sad and resting upon her. Had she been listening to her playing the entire time?

"That was beautiful," said the Ancient instead.

"…I didn't mean for you to hear that. I must sound… so selfish…"

"Tifa…" There was a rustle of clothing and quickly, the girl was in her arms and pressed in against her, close to her chest.

The first kiss was a soft press of skin, lips to cheek which began to trail down to the corner of her mouth. The kiss drew away the hot tears of frustration and anger, mostly directed at her self. With slow motions, her arms drew about Aerith and brought her closer, closer still until the keys made a discordant sound, so pressed against the piano was she. But the kiss, soft and insistent was all that drew her attention.

The first hand to unlatch a button however, was her own and for this night, magical and melancholy, she knew the girl of her dreams would be hers alone and there would be no setting of the table so you had to eat with a knife and spoon, there would be no frustrated silences, no angry tears. Instead there would be love.

As Tifa pulled back just a little to look at Aerith's face, she was surprised to see that the other woman was crying too, but slower tears than her own. "Aerith?"

"I love you," The flower girl whispered and pressed back into the kiss, one hand slipping down Tifa's stomach in a stroking motion.

All conscious thought fled her then in the moment of sudden passion rising up inside her, great wings unfolding, with only the sad, little lonely though trailing after them that tomorrow morning as it had been on that fateful morning so long ago, she might wake without the flower girl again… but the fear fled as the bedroom door was kicked closed…


	8. Part Eight: Trials

_(( a/n: Sorry! I realise its been a while between updates - christmas sales and all that. I hate being a sales assistant sometimes...))_

**Heart Less Love**

**Chapter Eight: Trials**

_"People have many things pent up inside of themselves. So many things they can never forget. Strange, isn't it?"_

* * *

Her hands were white knuckled on the railings as she stared down at the city which was just down the ravine from where the ship had been forced to park amid the sparkle of glaciers and crystals left to ferment together over time uncounted. Her hair was a drafted grey instead of warm brown into the sky as the wind drove up from the side of the city and ran past them all quickly. Bags packed and ready for their expedition sat with straps whistling in the breezes, buckles banging together appreciatively. Others stood behind her.

It was, she told herself, almost like they had never stopped going, like there had never been any breaks between them all. Some were not there for reasons of jobs and other professional duties, but the majority stood to her back and stayed there, with her.

A lump in her throat was the sweet and bitter taste of regret and joy all at once and any tears which stood in her large and expressive green eyes she would deny their existence and blame it on the harsh and cold winds. But the teeth which drive her lips into dents where she bit down against sobs and the need to cry would give her away, she knew.

To either side stood what had become the two most important people in her life and she could hardly credit that her life had come to be dominated so much by people she would have otherwise never known if not for her strange and mysterious heritage as a Cetra and Ancient protector of the Planet.

Tifa Lockhart wore simple clothes as she tended to favour, over lace and ruffles and things that might otherwise impede her. A pair of shorts cut to mid calf in thick black leather barely wafted in the wind but the myriad straps and belts she wore streamed about her like strange traces of some black and dark magic. A simple shirt of black with a thicker jerkin of leather over it, all sleeveless made up her raiment, set off by the very sturdy hiking boots she wore laced to just above her ankles. Her hair, cut shorter to just below her shoulders was the colour of every night sky she had wished dreams and hopes on and the sparkle in the wine dark eyes that looked at her was warm and bright.

To her other side was the man of secrets and sad scars of his past, Cloud Strife. He said nothing because this time around, there was no need for him to echo the past, but she could see the guilt in his blue eyes and set of his mouth, the way he gripped the railing as a man condemned to sorrow for all his life. He wore blue; it was his favourite colour it seemed. Legs clothed in just a simple pair of trousers, military issue boots and a tank-top of knitted wool in blue with a zip that he had drawn up over his mouth to try and hide the self loathing curl of his lips. Both arms wore sturdy leather gauntlets and the left was sheathed in a wrap of even thicker leather, similar to the specialist Kevlar that ShinRa were always trying to perfect back in the days of them being a world power.

She said nothing either, she didn't know if she could fully express her mixed feelings upon seeing this place again. So without words to sully the air and sanctity of her first visit back to this place since the day she had unwittingly crawled from the waters renewed and broken, Aerith Gainsborough turned to the others who waited behind her and folded her hands before her, clad in simple white skirt and cowled pink jumper, as well as a pair of similar hiking boots to those that Tifa wore.

Yuffie, energetic and hopeful as ever and trying her hardest to cover each wince of jolting her collar bone, smiled back at her trustingly. Cid tilted his head and shrugged with a sigh, as if to indicate that they should hurry up. Vincent was silent like the grave, he rarely spoke even now, but his eyes that lingered upon her were filled with the same mixed feelings she attributed to herself, to this world.

"Everyone," she said softly, unsure if her words would carry in the winds of this place, "I am happy you decided to come with me."

"You know only wild horses would keep us all away from another adventure," Yuffie grinned, earning chuckles of reproof from Tifa and Cloud, whilst Cid took a more direct measure and tried to blow smoke into the girls face – it backfired and clouded back into his, to her amusement.

"Even if they are so far away, our hearts are all close together," she murmured.

Tifa's hand touched her elbow gently, "You know that if Barrett, Reeve and Red could have made it, they would have."

"Plus, someone has to watch over the kids," Cloud offered from the other side.

"I guess so, I just…"

What did she want to say?

Aerith shook her head, exasperated with herself and sighed, reaching for her backpack. Tifa watched her and then said softly, "Hey, what is it?"

"This place…"

"… You don't have to go in there, I could…" Tifa stopped short and then grimaced, "…do not all that much, hah. Oh well, at least I tried?"

"Teef," she said affectionately, smiling a little, "Thank you."

"No thanks needed, 'tis a girlfriend's duty to watch out for her beloved."

Aerith straightened, her hair caught into a ponytail and no longer the twisted braid whipping about her face in long tendrils of that dampened golden brown and looked towards the distance, "Hey, everyone?"

They all looked to her.

"Can… would it be okay for me to walk ahead of you guys, just a little? I need to… I…" Were those tears betraying her? Her cheeks felt a little flushed with the effort of trying to verbally express herself in this difficult situation. "I know Tifa wants to break her neck making sure nothing bad happens but… I'll stay in sight."

"…Ancient stuff," was the sound of Vincent's gravely voice and everyone looked at him from her, her knees weak and grateful for the distraction. "That city, it's not ours to trespass into and enough people have over time. Let her go first to unlock the way. I'm sure there are things in there that she wants to see for herself, on her own, before we get there."

Cloud grinned suddenly, "I knew it, the apocalypse is coming, he spoke more than two sentences in one go!"

Laughter flooded around as Vincent just lifted a vaguely curious eyebrow as if this were new to him, and even Aerith laughed as she slipped her cold hand into the distinctly ridged and metal inlaid-gloved hand of her partner. She squeezed and was almost overwhelmed to feel a squeeze back, hesitant but approval nonetheless of her harebrained idea. Her eyes slowly lifted to those lovely ones of Tifa and she smiled.

"Fine," Tifa smiled, "But not too far ahead."

"Yes ma'am," Aerith dimpled back and gently, even though Tifa was laughing, she could feel the shaking of their hands. Only she was unsure, who was it who shook the more?

_

* * *

_

The fears won't go away.

_It is something that makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck, on my arms and sets my heart quailing, fluttering and crying. The city of the Ancients was as I remembered it from those years ago when I last came here on the brink of winter turning into spring. It was just after my birthday that I came down the craggy ravine and beheld the seat of what had once been all the power in the world. A domed city made of shells and crystal, or luminous logs and trees where mould grew that resonated with the lifeblood of the Planet. In the city were homes that knew not the touch of dust, but were ancient nonetheless, stood as if waiting for the owners of them to come home one day._

_They never will, I wanted to say, but let their lies continue because a kinder lie is better than crumbling this beautiful place and feeling I have when here._

_But he ruined it, yet I forgive him._

_There, on the altar beneath this crystal ruin of a city that lies perfect but hollow above the mantle of the world, I knelt there and prayed with everything I could muster, everything I had experienced and loved in this world._

_It was enough._

_I am content with that, it was enough._

_Coming back here fills me with horrible sorrow and terrible fear, this place is home to my memories of loss and my memories of dying. It is here that I first realised I would not see Tifa again; that I had left words in my heart unfulfilled and she would never know the swift passion and delight I could have filled her world with. It was here that I knew that tomorrow was a luxury I had not been afforded and to give that to others, I would have to selfless enough to also hand over yesterday. It was on the brink of his sword that I looked up and into Cloud's eyes saw real sadness, real loss and knew…_

…_knew that I was going to die._

_What do you say to something like that?_

_It was unavoidable of course. I died there, on the altar in a spread of my skirts and watched the world fade away from me. It was beautiful, the darkness that closed over the face of the person I loved, watching her for as long as I could until even my eyes could see no more and there was only warm darkness._

_They lay my body into the water that I had always dreamed of and always feared, knowing and at the same time, unknowing that the water would be my grave. Days, weeks, who knows the time that passed for in passing there is no sense of time. There is only the sensation of being apart._

_What I learned in the Lifestream in no way diminished me, it took everything I was and magnified it, hundredfold, until the power I was capable of wielding was incalculable._

_So when the world denied humanity, when Holy took it upon itself to destroy everything I had given myself up for… I helped._

_So when the sickness was breaking the hearts, spirits and bodies of people across the world… I conjured the Gospel of the Planet to rain down upon them._

…_and long after, I told myself, long after those from within the world have passed, long after Genesis fades and people wither, I would be alone, remembering everyone else and everything we had done._

_The fear of it all, all that had happened… this place is a tomb to the woman who used to be Aerith Gainsborough. In here, is yesterday… and I cannot expect you to ever fully understand that…_

She shook from her dark thoughts to carry on up the craggy rocks that littered the pathway of curved shells, the going slippery and the people behind her laughing and jostling each other. The air had warmed up, the closer they had come to the city and now it felt like late summer and not the first cold cries of winter trying to freeze the lands.

She raked a hand into her hair and paused there.

They passed her, one by one, faces smiling until she was left behind to stare down at the city with tears prickling at her eyelids. Their backs were retreating from her and she felt frozen to the spot, rooted by her own insecurities.

Then, as if by complete surprise, Vincent came back to wait for her with that dark patience, his glowing red eyes watching her. She took her sweet time, looking over the crystal and the shell, the driftwood and strange glow that seemed part and parcel of this place.

If the Cetra had survived the Calamity and ensuing viral infection, she would have probably grown up here among others of her kind, speaking with the Planet and never knowing the small band of adventurers that captured her heart and her life.

Thinking on that twist of strange fate, she turned to look across at Vincent who was still carefully watching her and smiled, a wry twist of her mouth made no less sweet for it, "I wonder if my mother or father ever came here."

"To this City?"

"Yes," she looked back at the sprawling world she could never touch, except through pictures of the past, "I bet it was once beautiful."

"It's beautiful still, in its own way."

"I guess you are right. You know… down there… I never really did say sorry."

"You don't have to."

Aerith looked at him, "Oh?"

He gave a shrug, which was usually the extent of his motion, "You came back to us didn't you, and more specifically, you came back to those who needed you in their lives the most."

She hurried so that he was forced to fall into step with her and together they walked down the shell path and into the dead city, the party of others long gone ahead of them and she folded her arms, the tug of her minimally packed backpack hardly bothering her as it weighed loose on her back. "But I should have said sorry. I feel like when I went away, I left a lot of things behind that even now, even when they slowly come back to me, I can't ever make up."

"Then forget about the things you can't do and focus on what you can do."

She stopped in her tracks and turned to the side, looking up at the Cliffside that rose above the main building of curled shell and then to the smaller one just next to it, this one seemingly crafted from both shell and driftwood with crystal studs riveted into it. It chimed gently, a hollow but pure chime that made her eyelids grow heavy as if with sleep.

"Aerith?"

Sleep sounded good.

She lifted her arms out without volition and leaned forward, but the world went by too quickly and soon she was being held in someone's arms…

* * *

"_Careful, the pathway is always slippery when wet."_

"_I know that," she half-snapped, pushing herself back to being upright and meeting the gaze of Arkilles, the same green gaze that she shared. About them, few people were going about their business at this time of day; it was too early for commerce to begin especially when the weather was so bad._

_She straightened her dress, a formal affair of ribbons and long cuts in both tunic and dress skirt. Her sandals were laced over ceremonial socks and her headband which proclaimed her newly raised Priestess was faintly askew._

"_See what you're done," she complained, whilst trying to fend off a smile, "You've ruined my ceremonial outfit."_

"_Bah, you've never managed to turn up looking neat and tidy to anything in your life and you know it, K'listo."_

"_That's not the point," the woman called K'listo sniffed sharply._

"_So I was going to ask, are you really too busy to come?"_

"…" _Her arms fell lax._

_This subject had become a bone of contention between them and she was unsure if she should open her mouth and push her sibling away forever with a poor choice of words. So instead K'listo lied to him with her eyes, with her heart, with her entire being if she must and summoned a fake, sick little smile as he went on._

_His eyes were bright, "She wants you as head bridesmaid, you know?"_

"_I know but the Temple duties will keep me busy."_

"_One day, please?"_

"_I can't Arkilles, I'm sorry. You knew this profession would be taxing on my time when I took it up…" She looked down. "But you'd still be married, with or without me there."_

"_K'listo… oh and… ah…"_

_He was blushing; she noticed from the corner of her eye and lifted her head to peer intently. Her brother had always been handsome, the kind of handsome that gets you the right kinds of attention but it was a rare event for her to see him stammering like a kid with his hand caught in the sugar jar._

"_Well," the young priestess demanded, hands going to her hips, "Spit it out?"_

"_We're expecting. Twins!"_

"_T…Twins?" It was certainly not expected on her part and it felt as if someone had hit her in the stomach, all the air draining from her lungs, "Are you sure?"_

"_The Healers confirmed it for us yesterday but you've been so busy. We're going to name one after you, whether it's a girl or a boy…" he chattered on as she groped for some support._

_Twins._

_Two children born of that union._

"_Great news," she said weakly. "I…"_

_Thankfully, serendipitous bells rang out from the far cliff-side where the small temple for new priestess was and she lifted her head. He frowned and made a moue of his mouth, but she ignored it, so wrapped up in her own horror to see that discontent on his face._

"_I guess classes start," she sighed._

"_Classes? What is it that you're doing there anyway?"_

_She hesitated on telling; the truth was, the actual exercises would very likely offend and perhaps even instigate outright anger in her brother. So she shrugged a little and mixed up the truth of events just a little, pointing her hand to the cliffs._

"_You see there," K'listo said, "There's a cleft near the top. Up there is a small shrine to the Planet."_

"_A shrine?"_

"_We record things there as well as make it the home for the Trial of the Gods. The trial is intended to help decide who can wield great power, or who cannot."_

"_A trial…" He looked down at her and she inwardly cursed at her lack of height, "What kind of trial?"_

"_That's for the Priesthood, not for you. Besides, your… lady is pregnant," she stumbled a little on that but thankfully he didn't notice, that soppy 'new father' smile blooming on his face once again, "So shouldn't you attend to her?"_

"_I guess so; it was nice seeing you again. Don't be a stranger!" He waved and hurried off down the street, leaving her there in mussed robes and tattered rags of love that clung to her heart, weeping for him._

_A child had been the last of her worries – deep down inside she had assumed that they would be incompatible. But nature loved a laugh at those wild theories she seemed to have broken over her head each day. And worse yet, it was not just one child but two children!_

"_It has to be a sick joke," she murmured, hitching her skirts and running towards the temple._

_A voice in her ear, a voice from months ago when blind panic had overtaken her, sweet and reasonable and beyond loveliness, asked: 'What does it matter, if there is love?'_

_She replied in kind to the disembodied voice as with tiring legs she began to scale her way to the chamber in the cliff, feeling as if hands were trying to drag her down, what strange lassitude: "It matters to me, because I love him and she is unworthy of him…"_

_Was it just because he was her brother?_

_Surely there was some magic at work here for she could feel the pressure of fingers trying to drag her down and slow down her paces, but as she hit the floor of the chamber and hauled herself over the lip she groaned in exhaustion._

"_Who are you?" she gasped into the air, asking of the sweet voice._

_A distant voice replied as tiredness rolled back reality; 'I am…'_

_

* * *

_

"…Aerith…" she whispered, opening her eyes to the brightness of the sky.

Over her was leaned Tifa and her arms were weighted down by Cid and Cloud. Yuffie was hauling her backpack up the side of a cliff and far beyond the dizzy height stretched so easily. Her green eyes widened and slowly she tried sitting up with reassuring gestures to the men holding onto her that she wouldn't try and fling herself from the edge. "…oh," was all she could muster.

"Aerith, what happened?" Tifa breathed, dropping to her knees and wrapping trembling arms about the ancient, "You lagged behind and then Vincent came running to tell us that you were having some kind of hallucination again. He said it felt like magic was making you almost unstoppable, he couldn't slow you down and then…"

"Then you climbed up the biggest mountain you could find," the ninja girl groaned, dropping the backpack and putting a hand surreptitiously to her collarbone, "And packing rocks too, it seems."

"I…" She looked at the faces and then groaned, "I guess I even do their actions in the visions!"

"Visions?" Tifa said, eyes narrowing.

"Same gal'," Cid blew out a smoke ring and eyed her, "That was at that temple?"

"Same one," Aerith nodded, "Only now I know her name. K'listo, and in this vision it must be a time jump because she's a Priestess."

"Priestess? Oh, like a cult?"

"Sort of, a religious group of Cetra who were highly trained to speak with the Planet and call up all the knowledge of their forebears. Sephiroth once told Cloud that to use materia the most efficient way is to have some knowledge of the Ancients. They taught them to use it here, to maximise their talents in harvesting and taking care of this world."

"And this place?" Tifa hiked a thumb at the smooth front of rock where Vincent was stood apart from them all, head tilted as he examined it.

"This is… she called it the Trial of the Gods. Not only where they hold the tomes of knowledge but… where you have to pass a trial to gain access to that knowledge." She reached out for a hand and took Cloud's who happened to be the quickest one there. He tugged her to her feet and smiled.

"Well, how do we get inside?"

"Ah," Aerith grinned and then held up a sheepish hand to itch her cheek, "You shook me from the vision before I saw that."

"Blast it open," Cid said.

"No way old man, half-inch the lock on the door!" Yuffie squeaked, taking steps towards it.

"Knock," Vincent said humourlessly, which still managed to make Cloud laugh. Aerith smiled and looked at Tifa who shrugged.

"I'm out of ideas, maybe there's a trick to it, like at the temple?" The martial artist sighed, "There's some writing but we can't read it and I doubt you can."

"Why's that?" She said curiously.

"Well, you weren't raised with Cetra so would you even read their language?"

"Ah, I work in mysterious ways," she chuckled and wiggled her fingers at her lover, who rolled her eyes and pointed at the small set of symbols.

Aerith, true to her word, slowly walked over as she dusted her skirts off and peered, leaning in to get a better look. To her disappointment, it appeared that being able to read the written language of her forebears really wasn't one of her skills and Tifa was right. How odd that she shouldn't know such things. Her memory was still like Swiss cheese in some places…

"Aerith," Vincent began and slowly the doors gave a great shudder and a line, running like a crack along the smooth front of the wall appeared, dust shaking itself away from where it had remained sealed for so long.

Everyone fell silent as the doors continued to grate open, eyes looking to Aerith who blushed and straightened, "Hey, don't look at me."

"Someone expects you," Yuffie concluded and shivered, "Which is kinda creepy."

"Well, I hope they expect us by having warm beds and hot food," Cloud sighed and almost immediately his stomach growled.

"Hungry again!" Tifa groaned.

"I'm a growing boy!"

"You stopped growing at eighteen!"

"Not true, men continue to grow until they're twenty five."

"You're far older than twenty five, Cloud, you're just a pig."

"Oink Oink?"

"…" Aerith stared into the chasm of the dark beyond the door as the bickering continued behind her between the two dominant people in her life, and she drew a slow breath.

"Something's in there," Vincent said in his dry voice, backed up by Yuffie who also nodded slowly.

"…I guess we shouldn't be rude and keep them waiting…"

Far more bravely than she felt, she placed her hand to door and started in, to the sibilant hiss of the shadows and the fading of the light behind her, where only the simple voice rubbed raw on her nerves as if calling from her nightmares, from the yesterday she had thrown away...

…_little…flower…_


	9. Part Nine: Fears

_(( A/N: I apologise to everyone - I've had a really rough time of it, but hopefully, you haven't all deserted me! I know this is only short, but it's a start back towards the stories of Tifa and Aerith and their life together ever after. Bhryn xx ))_

**Heart Less Love**

**Chapter Nine: Fears**

_A little fear will control the minds of the common people…_

* * *

The darkness swallowed her up with every step she took closer to the centre of the corridor, the apex where ahead laid all the secrets she was trying to reach out for without knowing how to reach or what her fingers might touch. Behind her, the awareness of her friends faded from her mind and on impulse she turned around.

But where she may have expected to see shadows and nothing, they were there, walking towards her with slow speed as befit those lost in the darkness.

Aerith wrinkled her brow, confused as to why they were moving but there was nothing there in her mind as there always had been, little knots of colour and consciousness that she had always labelled and known as each of her friends. It was all gone; the colours that had supported her every day vanished from her life without as much as a by-your-leave.

Fighting the sensation of being alone, she turned and started walking back towards the apex when a voice behind her stopped her dead in her tracks, so quickly that she wavered on that strange point between walking and moving.

"Aerith," Cloud said from behind her, but his voice despite being his, was stricken with a massive degree of dispassionate calm, "Don't go into the darkness alone. I will protect you."

"Aerith," Tifa said from just beside him, her eyes staring through the Ancient, "I will always be there so you don't have to do anything."

"Ancient," grated the voice of Cid, resting his pike on the floor, "You can do anything but now you don't have to do anything because we'll do it for you."

"G-guys?" she stammered, looking from face to face fearfully. They surely didn't mean what they said?

"Big Sister," Yuffie said, from behind her now. How had the girl sneaked there? Oh, that's right… she was a Ninja after all and she was used to sneaking around people. "Let us take the pain, let us live for you."

"But I'm alive," Aerith exclaimed.

"But you are dead," Vincent whispered, the dark shadow beyond her, "You are dead and there is only Aerith the Saviour, Aerith the Ancient… there is no Aerith to live her own life."

"Stories and dreams and hopes, all pinned on," her partner said tonelessly, those eyes a beautiful ruby red, "You are those, you are those now. You don't have to do anything."

"I'll protect you," Cloud repeated stubbornly, reaching for her arm.

Without thinking, she gave a cry and jerked away and backed directly into Yuffie who snapped a hand about her slender wrist, bangles jangling with the sudden aggressive motion. Aerith stared helplessly at her friends, tears coming to her eyes. This was a nightmare, it had to be? How could they turn on her like this?

…all she wanted was the freedom of her own life, her second chance…

"But I'm alive now," she sobbed, "I want to live for myself."

"You can't," they all said, softly chanting their own little lines to her as she slumped helplessly in the hands of Yuffie and with hopeless eyes watched them all close in…

* * *

His steps slowed with the silence that ate up the darkness, staring with wide eyes into the nothingness that consumed the world now. From the shadows there stared two eyes of brilliant green, directly at him.

"You know what your problem is, Strife?"

"…"

"Your problem is that everything you ever wanted, someone took away from you."

Cloud bent his head a little, eyebrows furrowing his forehead, a smooth expanse of skin wrinkling under his confusion. "I don't think that's true at all."

"Isn't it? Soldier took Tifa away from you, I took your family away from you…and Tifa, she took Aerith away from you. All that's left is the bitter taste of defeat in your mouth, a metallic taste like coppery blood from where you bite your tongue against crying out."

"That's not true at all... I don't have any control over how… over how Aerith feels…" He casually and slowly shook his head from side to side. "Nor do I control how things work out."

"If only you'd had the courage to stand on your own and speak out. If you had done, maybe she would love you… isn't there always something standing between you and love?"

"Love…"

The demon from his nightmares stepped from the blackness, a wing hanging from his shoulder as his memories always painted him, draped in the shadows and his pale hair glinting despite no real definable light source. The eyes glowed green, a green of power and a green of seething vicious hate.

"Love, Strife, makes this world go around… what will you do about it?"

"Do?"

Rich laughter mocked him from every side, deep and mellifluous it rang on his ears so much that he covered them, dropping his sword. Sephiroth reached from behind him, hands prying his from ears to lean in and press his lips close, whispering in darkest tones possible for any human to ever insinuate anything, "Do, Strife, do something. Stop being the puppet of destiny all your pathetic life and take control… what is it that you want?"

"I want…"

His blue eyes bored into the darkness, "I…want…"

* * *

"All this time and you haven't changed a bit. Is that because of the chaos gene?"

He turned, looking across his shoulder at the pale, almost luminescent figure of a woman looking at him, clothed in white finery as if laid for a wedding or a funeral. Her face was calm and serene but marked with a passage of sadness. Eyes of blue looked through him, to his very soul where she had laid her fingerprints so long ago.

"You're still the beautiful young man I saw so long ago."

"…Lucrecia…"

"Are you not going to ask me then?"

"…"

"I hear you waiting to ask me every time you sleep, every time you close your eyes, it echoes in the beating of your heart." She came closer, a strip of light in the darkness, "So why don't you ask me now?"

"…Forgive me?"

"For what?"

He paused and looked at her, tilting his head, could she be so serious?

She looked back, impassive and smooth like the face of a marble statue, "Vincent, what for? It was I who helped do this to you. It was I who caused the madness of Deep Ground… in forgiveness; you have nothing to seek from me."

"Then…" He closed his eyes, "What was I sleeping to atone for?"

"…"

As silence greeted his words, he opened his eyes to see another figure standing where Lucrecia had been, a man of a medium height with slicked back black hair and moon spectacles that glinted with light but never revealed the cold and calculating eyes behind them, eyes of a dull green-black, much of the same as a snakes.

"Hojo."

"You spent your life waiting to kill me… you spent so long waiting for the chance, and it slips you by. Maybe you atone for that now… your life, this curse, which is your everlasting punishment…"

"My punishment?"

"You will forever be punished, Vincent Valentine, and when the stars are gone, you will still writhe in the fires of sin."

Vincent looked away and down at the metal arm, flexing his fingers gently with golden light flickering back up at him, "My life is… my sin?"

* * *

"Come home right now!"

She winced deeply, hearing the bite of the voice she could remember from her earliest childhood, the voice that was never content unless bellowing orders out as if on some military practise ground. It set her teeth right on edge!

"Go away," Yuffie scowled at the darkness behind her, marching forward resolutely. When had everyone suddenly lost her in this darkness? Honestly, she would have to start tying string to them just so they didn't keep running away from her.

"You have duties, responsibilities…"

"Yeah, well so did you and look what happened with you in charge, old man!"

"Why did the Gods curse me with such a disrespectful daughter?"

"Why did they give me a father who doesn't know how to protect his own honour!"

"You will be ruler, you must conform!"

"Conform this, old geezer," she muttered, turning around with her fuuma-shuriken of similar name, Conformer, so she had named it for the memories of her heritage. But she brandished it pointlessly at the shadows behind her, for there was no one there.

Confused, as it was painting her face plainly, she dropped her martial stance and tilted her head quizzically. "All…righty…then…"

"GO HOME!"

The shout in her ear made her shriek and jump forward several paces, but when she came to stopping it was only because her clothes had suddenly changed. Instead of her sleek ninja clothes, she was garbed in kimono and obi, the sash tied tightly about her waist to the point of cutting off her ability to breathe. Her face felt stiff with makeup and formal attire, her feet awkward in the standard sandals of a lady and her hair draw painfully back into a tight style fashionable in Wutai.

Squeaking in alarm, she tried to tear the clothes off, but as she tugged harder they grew tighter to her body, suffocating her even and she fell down to her knees in fright. Stubbornly tugging away at the neckline, she pitched face first into the dirt of the cavernous corridor floor, looking up with tears in her eyes.

"Father, please," she begged to the shadows, "I don't want any of this, I want…"

"You want what?"

"…I…want…"

* * *

He stubbed his cigarette out on the floor and wiped at his face, damned cobwebs always seemed to get everywhere. Why were there always cobwebs in creepy corridors? Couldn't they come up with something original for once, for pity's sake?

Moving forward a few steps, the sudden tiredness that swept over him was almost crippling and he ground the butt of his weapon into the sandy floor to keep himself upright. Ahead of him, the others were quickly walking away into the darkness.

"Wait," he said, "Just give me a moment."

"We don't have a moment," threw back Cloud.

"Just a moment…" he gasped and forced himself onward two more steps, only to come to a wheezing, shuffling stop, strands of grey hair falling down into his face. His blue eyes gazed at them myopically, the soft grey shifting as he tilted his head.

Wasn't his hair blond?

Looking down to where his hands gripped the shaft of his fearsome pike weapon, he could see the blotches of liver-spots that came with advancing age, even in the darkness, and his eyes widened in surprise. "…why am I like this," he groaned into the dim light of the cavernous corridor, leaning until he was forced to crouch slowly, bones complaining loudly with cracks and crunches as he did so.

"You're too old now," Vincent said softly, passing him by. Yuffie was one step behind him, sprightly shifting from foot to foot.

"I'm not too old; just need to get my breath… just need a moment…"

"Too old…"

…and he wheezed tiredly…

* * *

She walked a few steps, and then stopped.

Unsure why, Tifa looked over her shoulder and saw the shadows, shadows that lacked definable figures of her friends, walking behind her towards that common and distant goal of knowledge. Instead, just the darkness yawned there tiredly. Her dark eyes came back to look before her, at the Ancient who was only steps in front of her.

"Aerith," she said softly.

"Tifa, what is it?" the woman turned to look her in the eyes.

Such beautiful eyes, she mused, watching her as her head was tilted in that bird-like way she had, making her seem far younger than she was, innocent even.

"I was thinking… no, it doesn't matter."

"Of course it matters."

"…I love you, you know this, don't you? I love everything about you… so even if what happens here changes everything… I just need you to know, I'd still love you."

"Tifa," she breathed, and then smiled, "…I know."

In the darkness there was a rush of footsteps and before Tifa had the ability to will her muscles into action, she was splashed in blood. It was warm and stuck to her body, dripping from her chin and fingertips, staining her skin black in the shocking darkness. In front, Aerith looked down at the blade in her middle, then up again in surprise.

"…a sin for a sin…" a voice murmured.

"Sephiroth… no…" Tifa choked, fumbling quickly for the cure materia she had been given, but coming up empty handed. The blade was drawn out even as she fumbled uselessly at her pockets and slowly she stumbled forward.

"Tifa…" coughed the Ancient.

"No, no… no…" she reached out for her and…

…Aerith vanished through the bloody fingers that tried to grasp onto her.

"…no…" gasped the fighter, falling to her knees, "…no…"

The clatter of Aerith's bracelets on the floor was deafening, but she couldn't find the tears in her, instead only shock raged inside her mind. Shock, anger, fury, all of it.

…and that was when she heard it.

**Your fear is not a fear entirely for yourself.**

"…I…" Tifa said dully, clutching her hands about her arms and rubbing them. There was no one else in the shadowy corridor apart from her and the lonely shape of Aerith's bracelets on the floor next to her. Slowly she reached out and picked them up, the light bouncing from them, what little light there was.

**Tell me why.**

"Because… shouldn't she be allowed a fair chance, finally? Shouldn't we have some peace and quiet, for once?"

**This is the life of a Cetra. The will to struggle, to survive, to blossom and eventually to fade away. This is the natural course of things, even this world. To die and to live…**

"Perhaps." Tifa smiled gently, "Perhaps it is as you say… but… Aerith is one of those who know the meaning, of what it is, to live and to die. Maybe not the meaning of life, but I would like her to have the time to figure out the meaning of other things. The meaning of why she always tilts her head when she is thinking, the meaning of Cloud's smile, the meaning of flowers and sunshine and the tides that pull in and out. I want her to have that time, to figure out what's important to her now… and I'm so afraid she'll never have the time for it. Because…" She sighed, "Because there's always someone who wants something more of her."

**Enter.**

"Huh… enter?"

The darkness suddenly lifted. The corridor revealed itself to her dumbfounded eyes, no longer rough hewn but smooth as if drilled by magic with the most loving of hands and practical of eyes. The stone was granite, speckled with countless chunks of crystal and gold, sparkling in the light that emanated from inside the wall itself.

It was beautiful…

At a far end was another door, set with a seal she could only just make out from this distance. Picking herself from the floor, casually noting that the blood had vanished from her somewhere in the interval, she began to make her way towards it.

As she did, her companions began to re-appear one by one, each looking thoroughly surprised or upset by whatever the voice had said to them. Even Aerith seemed slightly shaken, her hands clasped together before her and her face ashen in the strange light of the cavern.

"Aerith!" She said in relief, rushing to her side and ignoring the look of strange and sudden spite that Cloud gave them, before turning away with a sigh. "…you dropped this."

"Oh," stammered the Ancient, taking the bracelets, her wrists bare and looking ever more fragile. "I don't know when… it's all so strange."

"…did you hear the voice too?"

Aerith nodded as she put the metal bracelets back on, "…I think it's an old spell set to guard this place. I'm not entirely sure I gave it the answer it wanted."

"What answer was that?"

"…it doesn't matter… come on, the door to the inner sanctum is just ahead and we're all here together."

Tifa said nothing but felt bizarrely troubled as she watched the Ancient walk towards the doors, placing her cool hands onto the seal that adorned it. Her dark eyes moved to meet those of Vincent, of all people, and he simply looked her in the eye without dissembling, and she was sure he almost spoke.

"The truth."

…the truth of what?

* * *

"_I just want my own life."_

_**Your own life? You are Cetra, you live to serve.**_

"_I… I just…"_

_**A second grace is no gift for you alone. Think upon this. There are tasks beyond tasks for you to accomplish yet, Maiden, many tasks.**_

"_Why can't you leave me alone!"_

…**_why can't you accept it…?_**

"_Fine, so I'm selfish! I'm being selfish for the first time in a long while! I just want to be with Tifa! Why, why, why! Give me my memories back if you want me to perform like a dog, running your errands, doing your tasks!"_

_**The distant past is what you must concern yourself with, Maiden. Far back, farther than you can know.**_

"_My name… is Aerith!"_

_**...is it?**_

"…_wh…what do you mean by that…?"_


	10. Part Ten: Before

**Heart Less Love**

**Chapter Ten: Before**

_If this is all a dream, don't wake me up_.

* * *

She pushed the door open and froze on the point of entering, holding her self back and trembling even as she wavered with thick indecision. Entering this room would mean finding out exactly what the voices in her head had been telling her all the steps of the way to this place, and she found that she was afraid. It was ridiculous, wasn't she some kind of hero, at least, wasn't that what everyone made her out to be, all the damned time?

"I…"

"You don't have to go," Yuffie said quietly, everyone turning to look at her in surprise. "We could find another way; we don't have to go looking in here."

"Yuffie," Aerith murmured, "You see though, don't you? I have to go into here."

"Do you really?" The younger girl was obtuse as she pressed the issue, hand fluttering up to rest on the shoulder that the ancient had healed not so long ago. "What's so special about something in there? What's it got that we don't?"

"…"

"Isn't that for Aerith to decide?" Cloud added into the conversation, "It's not your choice, it's her choice. All we did was to come all this way with her. Not because she asked us to, but because we wanted to."

"Out of love, our friendship and bonds that run deep."

Yuffie glanced at her boss, Vincent, from the corner of her eye as he spoke, "I just don't like it, that's all. Are you gonna go in there on your own too?"

"I have to. I think I can't bring anyone with me to see it."

"Aw man, what a bust!"

Tifa smiled, but Aerith could see the edge of disappointment welling under the surface and quickly tried to stem off anything that would later be grounds for an argument between them; Planet only knew how little she wanted to spark a fierce debate about going places on her own. "Maybe if-"

She didn't have chance to get much further, as a sudden pall came over the party and the corridor where there had been a vague murmur from the Planet in the form of the hymn she was used to hearing, ever since her time in the Lifestream. There was nothing, just an aching silence that she found unbearable and panic rose quickly from her stomach to her throat, sitting there in cold dread. Then she heard it; the slither and the click-clack of talons on the magic hewn stone corridor, coming steadily towards them.

More than those simple sounds, she heard the voice, cool and dark, whispering in a voice that was layered many times over to her 'other' ears, the ears she used to listen to the Planet.

"_Gainsborough…"_ it hissed to her and she swallowed.

"It's coming."

Tifa glanced at her, then at the group. Aerith had noticed the way that Vincent tensed and Yuffie drew back against him, clutching her shoulder in remembered agony and she couldn't find the right words to make them fit suddenly, drawing against the door herself and gripping the frame.

"Yuffie, Vincent, how do we stop it?"

"It?" Aerith said, "There's more than one!"

"Crap," Tifa snapped, glancing at Cloud, "This wasn't in the guidebook."

"Damn surprise tours," he grinned in return.

Aerith pondered a snide remark but the sudden screech from the corridor disbanded all sane thought, for it was filled with malicious hatred, a cut-glass edge of fury and mindlessness that made the hair on the back of her neck rise in response. She shivered and gripped the door again, hunching over. Cid was the only one to move in the face of this, stepping so his body was in front of her, facing the path of the corridor.

"Cid?"

"Alright, guys and girls, here's the damned plan so you all had better listen up because I ain't repeating myself to you jackasses more than once, okay? Aerith, you get your pretty little butt into that room and do whatever you gotta. Yuffie, set up a defensive magic grid, Tifa and Cloud, on the front line and me an' old Vampire here will back you up – don't you be giving me none of those red eyed looks mister, I ain't the one who tried sleeping in a coffin. Y'all got that?"

Aerith paused and then smiled, laughing softly, "Aye, aye Cap'n!"

Tifa echoed her laugh, and soon there was a smile on every face at the blunt but practical way in which the old captain had handled their moment of fright at the screams from whatever was approaching. She sought Tifa's eyes for a moment, locking her green ones to the wine dark and expressive ones she loved dearly. Tifa was looking back at her, nose wrinkled as she smiled.

"You don't take too long, alright? If you get into trouble, just call me, Aerith."

"I will, you too."

"Hah, me, get into trouble?" Tifa flashed her a cocky little grin and fiddled nervously with her leather gloves – she tried hard not to show it, but Aerith could see the tremble in the fingers and the waver in that smirk. She could always read her love like an open book.

"I know, I know," Aerith smiled.

"Go then."

She hesitated then drew into the room, closing the door just as the screams flashed down the corridor, howls of anger that their intended target was closeting her self in yet another room protected by deep Cetra magic. The inside of the large room was sparse, painted white or perhaps, naturally so. Round and inset with a circular altar in the centre, she was drawn towards a chunk of natural quartz crystal that gave off a faint green-white glow.

It reminded her of something that she couldn't put her finger on and as she came closer the sounds of battle that had just started faded into the singular song of the Planet, rising in crescendo. Once she was stood by it, she was swaying with the force of the magic playing with her very senses and unwittingly, placed her hands onto the crystal.

With this, all rational thoughts fled.

* * *

_She opened her eyes, lowering her hands from the great crystal and looking behind her as there was a commotion coming down the corridor, so loud that it even echoed into the smooth chamber where she stood with the other priestesses, tending to the crystals and tuning their luminescence to the song of their planet._

"_What's all that noise for?" She muttered, going to the door and pulling open to look upon the sea of acolytes and other types, from all walks of study in the great halls of the Cetra Lyceum. Her robes fluttered with the passing strides of anxious people and peeved slightly, she folded her hands into the robe sleeves and stepped through the crowds with the two other priestesses closing the doors behind her, just as smoothly diving through the storm of people after her, never seeming to be disturbed by the rash and almost panicky motions._

_Soon she came to the door that opened on the first ledge of trials and the sunlight streaming through onto her face was warm with the promise of summer, her eyes looking across the crowds as they jostled to see over the ledge and down onto the city._

"_Move aside," she commanded firmly and at the sound of her voice, all the lower acolytes drew back to allow her closer to the edge. Slowly she came to the ledge end and with her sisters-of-study close by, looked upon the chaos below. Then lifting her eyes she spotted what had caused the dismay._

_Stood on a spire of the tallest building, swaying softly was the figure of the High Priestess, some look on her face that was indecipherable at the distance, yet she looked over just as K'listo was looking towards her and the face was calm, as calm as the dead of night and those bright green eyes faded into darkness._

_She had no time to spin wind or call the great waters of the city up to catch her; between one breath and look and the next, the High Priestess let go of the parapet and hurtled towards the ground. She closed her eyes as the crunch sounded, the screams rising from the onlookers and when she dared to open her eyes, brimming with tears of confusion, the blood splatter was arranged in almost a perfect circle about the body of the fallen High Priestess._

_At the head of the figure, where one hand pointed in death, bent out of place, was the black clad figure of the woman with reptilian eyes and pale hair, lifting her golden gaze very slowly to look unblinkingly at her, looking through her and there was not even a single expression on that alien, perfect face. Not so much as a flicker of an eyelid as a globule of blood trickled down from the cheek to chin, tracing the landing arc on skin._

_Sickened, K'listo tore her eyes away and snapped her orders out smartly, "Don't just stand there gawking. Rouse the healers; fetch the Examiners, someone for crying out loud find a calming spell! Joraile, go run to the High Priest's office and alert him of this, quickly! Larenne, I want you to go find my brother quickly, hurry now!"_

_Whilst perhaps not the best at giving orders, any kind of order was good; her two priestess friends dashed off and with a snort for the magical students who couldn't remember the basis for the spell needed, she flicked a hand over the crowd, intoning softly. The Planet sighed and gently put the Cetra adolescents to sleep, stood up and unmoving._

_Her eyes came back to where the woman had stood. No one remained there but the body of the High Priestess._

_K'listo had never been one to ignore a sign, and that pointing hand was one she could not afford to ignore at all. Never at all._

* * *

_He paced as though he would wear a trench into the floor. His black hair flounced with each step he took, his eyes piercing and he chewed his lip in adorable distraction._

_She watched him, pace up and down and down and up and once every so many steps, pausing to listen to the quiet of the chamber, then he would resume the long strides and pace of the motions, biting his lip and twiddling his thumbs nervously._

_Unlike her brother, K'listo sat sedately on the low cushioned chair without a back, hands folded coolly in her lap and brushing on the fine silks, swirled with the patterns of moonbeams and stars. Her hair was drawn away in the priestess style and her eyes were unreadable, or so she liked to think but they followed his motions._

"_Is it normally this long?"_

"_Longer, sometimes."_

_He scowled, "I just, and she hasn't made a single noise."_

"_She is not like us, and not like others. She would not make a sound if a bandersnatch chewed her leg off."_

"_K'listo, whilst faintly unkind I fear you speak the truth."_

"_I never lie, especially not to you brother."_

"_The Temple is nearly complete now; the High Priestess was going to remove the black materia, wasn't she?"_

"_The remnant of stars and nothingness, yes. It was to be interred in the tomb with the chosen few to protect it a week past but with these events… things have been occurring so strangely of late. It worries me, brother."_

"_Worries? Looking for another way to point your finger at my wife?"_

"_If… I am chosen as the High Priestess, I would find cause to question her ability to live in harmony here, yes. We have tried so hard to accept her alien ways, but she has not tried to change to fit in with us." K'listo tightened her hands on the skirts of the robe, the exquisite embroidery bunching up, "What does she want us all to do, leap from the spire too?"_

"_K'listo!"_

"_Don't 'K'listo' me, brother – you didn't see what I saw and you can try to defend her all that you wish. Others saw it, others bear witness to it."_

"_Even if what you say is true..." he sighed and sat down next to her, "Even so…"_

"_I understand. She is your wife; you love her and would do anything to protect not just her and that love, but the babies she bears for you."_

"_I would leave with her."_

"…_That would sadden me."_

"_That's the way of things, isn't it?"_

_K'listo bent her head to hide the tears in her eyes, "Yes. That is always the way of things."_

_From inside the chamber there was a reed thin wail piercing the air and like a shot, Arkilles was up from the divan chair and into the room, exclaiming with joy over the babe. K'listo remained there, listening to the dry responses of Arkilles' wife and the healers on hand. She waited, heart thudding with trepidation on her ribcage when the second wail went up, piercing the quiet._

"_Twins," she murmured, "…what a mixed omen."_

* * *

_She couldn't believe it._

_Her brother lay in a heap next to her, his face pushed into the mud slightly and her own robes that marked her eventual ascension to High Priestess after the current task were drenched with blood. Her own and some of the others, mingling together and darkening the fine weave, already a little dim in the twilight of the day._

_The Temple where they would house the remnant of nothing was just beyond them and their litter had been bearing the chunk of crystal towards it, guarded by magic users and warriors alike, but now they lay in the mud. The last person she had expected to see had done it, eyes wild and hair streaming down about her as the heavens continued in the downpour, lightning crashing in the distance and briefly lighting up the mad eyes, the tautness of skin and the grin snarled across the alien, perfectly beautiful features. The left hand of the woman gripped the black materia hard enough to draw blood and her right arm, holding a splinter of wood that had been a halberd and dripping thickening blood._

"_This is mine," she hissed._

"_Why? Why would you do this!"_

"_It calls to me, it always calls to me. It owns me and my soul and why not give it that, it promises everything to me, everything!"_

"_He loves you, you have children, isn't that enough!"_

"_Never enough, it'll never be enough!"_

_K'listo scrambled to her feet to make a dive at the woman, but the pole cam about and drove the splintered end through her shoulder fiercely, chased by hollow laughter, mocking in the chill that edged it._

_The alien face came close, pressing nose tip to nose tip. The eyes were dilated, filled with a madness of the mind and soul that made K'listo's own soul shrink in response, made it quail in fear. She swallowed hard and then wished she hadn't, pinioned to the side of the litter by the sharp wood._

"_Does it hurt, Cetra?"_

"_It hurts."_

"_How much, should I make you suffer more? Yes, you Cetra like your suffering, you like feeling like martyrs to the rest of us, don't you? Shall I make you a martyr, little Cetra girl, like your High Priestess?"_

"_So it was you!"_

"_She was taking it away from me," the left hand drew the chunk of materia up, the blackness slick and glittering evilly at her, "My beloved stars, my beloved ending and something. I couldn't let her do that and then they chose you, it had to be… you… as her successor. I know you can't stand me, Priestess… and I don't mind. I'll go North, to where the world touches the stars and leave this place by summoning disaster upon you all. Won't you enjoy that suffering?"_

"_Madness!" K'listo gasped and writhed, "You wouldn't!"_

"…_everything dies," The woman said coldly and just as quickly as she had appeared to them, she was gone, leaving her stuck to the litter with blood trickling down her shoulder._

_Brave enough to attempt to wrench the pole out, she gave a few sharp tugs but the waves of sickening pain was soon enough to dissuade her from it without help. Unfortunately, those who weren't dead from the attack lay under a heavy mind-spell that would leave them asleep for a while and without use of her hand, K'listo was unable to call up the magic needed to awaken them._

_Without much of a choice, she tried yelling a few times for them to wake and eventually, as blood loss began to wear on her vitality, she hung her head forward and breathed through pale and cracked lips, trying to concentrate on staying awake._

_When the darkness was coming in dizzyingly close, she heard his voice; "I was wrong, sister. I was… so wrong."_

* * *

_The war raged for a year, on and off. Sometimes they would imagine they had her cornered against escape but then the reality would come crashing in and they would realise they were kidding themselves and she had already found a way to evade them and move on._

_With greater numbers and resources, they eventually cornered her at the Knowlespole and despite her resistance, managed to prevent the total summoning of Meteor, the shards of the great sphere of a dead planet crashing down, splitting the planet and creating great canyons of jagged pain. There it was that she proved to have a dangerous ability to deceive humans and the war continued, growing bloody for a short while._

_But then she grew tired and weak and together with her brother, K'listo tracked her to the precipice where the lifestream bubbled out of the core of the world, gushing up to try and heal the immense wounds._

_She was just staring up at the sky, the chunk of black materia held balanced in her hand and from the glare of the raw energy of the world, she could see the stains of tears on those cheeks, perfect, flawless and like tiny stars themselves._

_Arkilles lowered his head, "I found you."_

_She didn't turn or move, no single motion, simply bouncing the materia a little as a hollow, broken sob choked from her throat. "Arkilles…"_

"_You have to stop now. You have to give yourself up."_

"_I want to, I w-want to stop it all." She looked at them, her eyes calm and not showing a hint of the wild madness that had eaten at her, a year before, a strange kind of delirium brought about by contact, mere vicinity with the black materia. "I want it all to go away… Arkilles… no… K'listo, help me… High Priestess."_

_The raw need in the plea hurt her so much that she was forced to lower her gaze, "I do not have the power needed to undo that which the Materia has done."_

"_Take it… take it then and seal it away."_

"_What?" K'listo said in surprise._

"_Seal the materia from the world, if others sense it or know of it, then it will draw them here… ah, take it, before I do more m-madness…" She threw the rock and it clattered harmlessly from the cliff face, coming to a stop by an Examiner who picked up the rock with gloved hands and placed it into a spell lined box. As he did so, the woman turned and lunged with a screech of, "NO!" before getting a hold of herself and dropping to her knees to prevent her mad headlong dash._

"_My love," Arkilles said softly, "What has it done to you?"_

"_I…I… still hear it. Ah, I will go mad from hearing it… w-whispering to me… singing to me…" She sobbed and cupped hands over ears, "Still singing. Let me have it!"_

"_No," He said firmly._

"_We shall seal it away," K'listo murmured, "So none may have it again, so there will be no more destruction."_

"_No!" The woman hissed, hands tightening in her hair, "No, no… no!"_

"_Come, we must do this quickly. You will answer for your crimes… …it is the way." The new High Priestess turned to go with her group of magic users, but there was a scuffle and someone pushed her gently forwards._

_Then a scream…_

_As she looked back incredulously, she could see only Arkilles stood at the precipice, sobbing softly. Her eyes glanced about, catching the smear of blood on the rocks that led to the edge and her mind quickly deduced what had happened. She flicked fingers at her followers, "Hurry, seal her before she returns or uses her wicked magic!"_

_They hurried to do her bidding, but the final blow was to be felt years, year later after they sealed her within the crack of earth in the Knowlespole. Leaving them to do what they needed to, she went to Arkilles and instead of standing quietly at his side, she laced her arms about his waist and mumbled into his back that heaved with wretched sobs, "You saved me."_

"_I killed her."_

"_You saved your children."_

"…_my children."_

"_You don't have to tell them, about what happened. Just say that their mother had to go far, far away."_

"_I will never love again, K'listo."_

"_You might do. You might be surprised at how the heart works." She sighed softly, "You … made a supreme sacrifice today, Arkilles."_

"_You're my sister… and you were right, and I was wrong. She was still evil, under it."_

"…_No," K'listo murmured as her brother broke free and stalked off to help with the magical sealing process, "Underneath it all, Jenova was just as fragile as we are, brother, only she had much fewer choices than us." She sighed and looked towards the box that contained the black materia, "…let us hope that this never comes to pass again. Sleep well, Jenova."_

* * *

"_Jenova, a woman born of the stars and not of this world; migrating from planet to planet, cursed to sensitivity of the lethal radiation that the black materia gives off. Hers was a life filled with discontent and a love she must lose. Mine was more the pity."_

Aerith opened her eyes, looking at the hooded figure that stood across from her in the room, faded faintly by the glow of the crystal. "Those creatures who are following us, what are they?"

"_Aberrations of the magic; twisted souls that were twisted yet further by the recent re-emergence of the black materia."_

"Twisted souls… they are the descendants of Jenova and Cetra? Mixed blooded children, overly sensitive to magic."

"_There are many in your world who claims such. Those who underwent the testing of their blood by ShinRa. It was those that would become eligible for the First Class programme, drawn to points of magical study."_

"First Class… so Zack!"

"_Zack was one with some mixed blood inside of him, possibly why he felt so drawn to you, another with magic inside of their selves like he."_

"…If what you say is true, then why are they after me?"

"_To eradicate the Cetra was one of Jenova's wishes and her last thoughts, resonating with the black materia, continued not only to Sephiroth, but to others with her mimetic legacy."_

"That's a bit awkward then." Aerith sighed, "But… why K'listo?"

"_K'listo eventually married and had children, descendants of the line of the High Priestess. You share some genetic makeup that she did, meaning, as far back as two thousand years ago, you are related."_

"…and you… then… you could only be…"

The figure drew the hood down and Aerith smiled faintly as he spoke, "I promised that I would look after things, after the mess she and I made for this world."

"I see," The ancient murmured, mouth twisting with a sudden grin, "I never imagined you as the cleaner type, Arkilles."

"I'm not too bad."

The door opened and a weary Yuffie poked her head about the door, looking at Aerith who jumped and tore her gaze from the man in dark clothing that she could only see, to gaze at Yuffie. "You startled me!"

"Uh huh. They're dead. Hey, who's the stiff?" She pointed at Arkilles' image.

It was all Aerith could do not to drop her jaw…


	11. Part Eleven: Legacies

_(( OMG GASP CAN IT BE?! Yes, an update after so long. I apologise so much for my absence, there has been this horrible thing called real life getting in the way of everything and sundry. So I hope to swing back on track and hope that all my readers haven't deserted me :) - Bhryn xxx ))_

**Heart Less Love**

**Chapter Eleven: Legacies**

_"Life is just like a river. It flows from the large ocean of life and eventually it returns back to it."_

* * *

She almost wiggled a finger in her ear to check that she wasn't hearing things. The stunned look of incredulity refused to slide from her face, glancing towards Arkilles to see if she was the only one a little distressed by Yuffie being able to see him, but to her dismay, he didn't seem in the least bit bothered.

Yuffie waited as long as she could for an explanation, but patience had never been her strongest suit. "Seriously, who is he?"

"This is… ah…"

"It is alright, Honoured Daughter. I will admit, I had not expected her to see me so well." Arkilles bent his head graciously, "M'lady Kisaragi."

Yuffie, to her credit, managed a sort of formal inclination, but her eyes glanced between Aerith and the darkly robed man and when she straightened her hand hovered about the razor like shuriken suspiciously. "What's going on?"

"I am Arkilles, a spirit of a world long past, a memory of someone who loved this world and fought hard for it."

"As hard as we did? As hard as Aerith did? Have you died for this world?" Yuffie snapped, "And what do you want anyway, bothering her? And what does he mean, see him so well?!" She swung her reactionary temper back onto the ancient, who felt a little unable to answer that. "I don't know what's going on here but is that guy something to do with those things out there?"

"In part, perhaps I am to blame." He bent his head again, "My apologies for this distress it has caused, but there are things that the Honoured Daughter needed to know, and now you too have come to see me, things you should know. Things I don't think you were precisely aware of before."

"That I'm a little bit Cetra?"

"…hmmm, perhaps." He looked at Aerith, eyebrows faintly knitting, "You told her this?"

"Yuffie has the ability to heal without materia, it is a trait strongly passed down through Cetra blood and only Cetra blood." Aerith grasped for the right words for this and shrugged, "It was the only viable explanation for it."

"A child with Cetra blood and something more…" He looked at Yuffie again and it was in those locked stares that she felt a shiver rush down her spine.

"Y…you cannot be suggesting…!?"

"Suggest? No, flat out telling you, Honoured Daughter."

"I don't get it," Yuffie snapped, fingers tapping the shuriken under the folds her specially made trouser-skirt.

"I don't think I want you to get it either," Aerith groaned. This was not precisely what she had been expecting when he had begun to explain the mystery behind her dreams, but it certainly fit the unusual instances that had been occurring and not only that, but what she could piece together of her memories of their travels.

"Anyway," coughed Yuffie, "The monsters gone, it won't come for you now Aerith."

"…Yuffie, can I have a moment more, please? Don't mention this to anyone… this is between us Cetra." Aerith looked at her with pleading green eyes, "Please?"

"Sure, but if that creep lays one hand on you…"

"He won't."

"Well alright, cause he's scared. You hear me?" her finger pointed at Arkilles, "Not a touch!" But true to her word, the ninja slipped back outside, closing the door behind her and the long knock of it closing echoed inside the room where the Ancient had secreted herself before with the black cloaked man who had been invading her restful dreams.

She was trembling, from head to foot, and her hands quivering with that unexpected revelation. Unable to contain her disbelief a moment longer, she turned to Arkilles, "Yuffie?!"

"Perhaps, perhaps more strongly than any other. They were drawn to her to start with, but the mixed blood-"

"Yuffie is part-jenova?!"

"The blood of a woman from another world that I loved, the blood of the Cetra, intermingled with human blood. The link is distant, but there nevertheless. You say yourself, it would explain so much." Arkilles looked towards Aerith, "And of those few, she is the strongest of my legacy left behind. She will hear the shadows, she will hear the darkness."

"Hear it?"

"Long after this is resolved; perhaps even then, she will always hear the darkness and wonder at why only she can. But her Cetra blood, that is strong enough to manifest healing powers which will keep her anchored."

Aerith couldn't help but consider this possibility. Yuffie always claimed her senses were sharp, sharp enough that she had helped them to track Sephiroth over the Gaea cliffs as she recalled in fragments from her memories within the lifestream, watching their journey. Yuffie and her desire to own more and more materia. Perhaps she was always looking for the black chunk of rock that her long distant grandmother, removed by many generations had coveted. But the blood of this wise and worn man too ran within Yuffie's veins, and that would surely prevent the worst.

"You think on if she too will succumb and seek to kill you?"

"No," Aerith shook her head, "Yuffie's Cetra blood is stronger than that. I'm wondering how to tell her these things without her completely flipping out on me."

"A ninja, flipping out?" He sounded amused and when she looked up, there was indeed a hint of a smile on his face.

"You know," she murmured, "There are other things I wanted to ask."

"Please, do."

"My memories."

Her memories were still a painful and confusing blur for her, a mish-mash of cobbled together feelings and sensations. She had hoped over time they would repair themselves, but it was hardly getting to the point where it could be called repairing. More than ever, the holes in her memory were gaping blots of nothing. The frightening possibility she may never gain them back filled her with despair, a sensation Aerith was completely unused to. Even back then, even the splintered dreams of her life before life, there had never been such a bleak despair.

"Will they ever come back to me?"

Arkilles' eyes were unreadable, but he moved towards her and unexpectedly placed his hands on either side of her face, tilting her head so she was made to look upon him, tears standing in her green eyes. "You want an answer?"

"Yes."

"Honoured Daughter, for this world that you have given so much for, you will be asked for sacrifice upon sacrifice. There will always be pain and there will always be suffering. Are you sure you want to remember everything? Today, not yesterday, tomorrow, not today. Is that not the way of the Cetra?"

"Today is a veil over my eyes and tomorrow a dream of a thousand possibilities," she replied, tears trickling down her cheeks, "but yesterday, the days when I was Aerith, I want to remember, so I don't feel so alone."

"You are alone."

"No, I'm not." Her eyes closed, a little hint of a broken smile touching her lips, "I'm not alone anymore. I remember; there was a fire and people, faces filled with thoughts, staring into those flames. The fire doesn't have answers, a fire is only fire. And she was whispering to me, and he asked of me, if they could help. I said then, 'no one can help me, I'm all alone.' But I was wrong, don't you see?" Aerith laughed, looking up at Arkilles defiantly, "I'm never alone. They'll always be there with me, sacrifice after sacrifice. Day upon day upon week or month or years that yawn forever in the face of time, they'll always be there with me. So I'm not alone."

He studied her as she stepped away from his hands, "Honoured Daughter?"

"So those memories, I don't deserve them back, perhaps, but they deserve them back. They gave up so much too, so they deserve back the person who remembers everything they say, all the things we shared, the love between us all. This person I am is but half a person."

"They will come back then," Arkilles bent his head, "But you must give up something else."

"If the price is to be paid, let the payment come only from me."

"An' it be."

"So, we have to find the Black Materia then."

"Yes, Honoured Daughter." The face of K'listo's brother was set now, drawing his black hood up, "Find the rock of fallen stars before another comes who would destroy this world and seal it away, deep within the planet."

"Within the Planet?"

"Yes."

"But… to enter the Lifestream…" Aerith frowned as Arkilles began to fade, "Hey, wait!"

"That is for you to figure out, Honoured Daughter, and time runs down quickly for you. You'd best be hurrying…"

"Wait, tell me how!? Wait!"

But the chamber where she stood by the stone was empty now; the light source faded more than before and only her shadow, looking up at her from the patterned stone blocks of the floor was with her.

Her memories, her sacrifice and yet more of the same. The high price she paid for being a defender of this world, would it prove too high for her this time? The echo of his words though hung thickly in her ears and casting one searching look back into the room, she turned and left, opening the door and closing it behind herself, secreting away once more the room where ancient Cetra magic had once flowed like a river.

Outside, the scene in the corridor was grim. One wall had suffered some debris damage, chunks of rock and fine stone dust littering the floor as well as a long splash of some dark substance that could only be blood, sticking to the entire hallway. Three bodies of men-shaped creatures were in a little pile by the debris. Each bore signs of mutation, similar to the explosive genetic mutation that Jenova had exhibited; squid like limbs and pincer shaped claws.

Her friends were sat on the other side of the corridor, looking a little worse for wear. Yuffie was holding up a cure materia to a long gash in Vincent's thigh that he seemed bound to ignoring. Beside him, Cid was tinkering away at a lighter in desperation, cigarette hanging from his lip, held there by saliva; he looked a little grey and breathless. Cloud and Tifa were still stood, Cloud's hair matted on one side with the dark blood of the monsters and his left arm looking a little stiff. Tifa had her hands on her hips, but Aerith spotted a white bandage snaking up the right leg and disappearing underneath her clothes, a similar one wrapped about her head so tufts of the dark hair poked out at vaguely comical angles.

"I see you just couldn't resist destroying the place," she murmured softly.

"Aerith!" Tifa exclaimed and turned, bounding across to her with only the vaguest hint of a limp, arms encircling her and pressing her close to her. "I was worried, it took a while!"

"I'm sorry," she said, muffled into Tifa's shoulder as she held on just as tightly in return, "I didn't mean to worry you."

"You always worry me, in a good way though. Ah, don't mind the bandages, one pesky blighter decided to take a chomp from me. What can I say, I taste good."

Cloud opened his mouth, but Tifa shot him an icy look, "Don't even say it!"

"Whaaat? You make me out to be such a jerk."

"Not a jerk, just a smartass."

Aerith smiled and looked over at Yuffie who was studiously trying to ignore them all, working the green globe of materia about in her deft fingers, the magic coming to her call easily. When would she ever have the time or situation to explain to Yuffie about who she was, or what she was?

"So, what happened?"

"It's to do with the Black Materia. When Sephiroth removed it from the temple area, the protective magic about it failed. As long as it remains outside of the influence of the Planet, the magic will continue to call to those who share a genetic nature with Sephiroth and Jenova. Jenova had children…" She frowned a little, "This isn't going to be easy to explain."

"Just tell us slowly then," Vincent advised, pushing Yuffie's fingers to the side.

"Alright." Aerith nodded, more to assure herself than anything, "Jenova, an alien from the skies as Cetra originally once were, a migration type race. Once perhaps, her race had not been evil, but the proximity of the black materia made everything worse for her, those primal, unformed instincts inside her… see, the white materia was made of this world, shaped by Cetra love and cares to speak to the world beneath them more clearly. The Black Materia came from outer space, a chunk of a meteorite perhaps, black as the skies and with a million stars inside it. The radiation of it was enough to draw Jenova close by, on another mission to somewhere else. Cetra history states her as a destroyer, but before the radiation of the materia at such close nature and when it was not around her; Jenova was as any other normal person. She could love, and did love; a man called Arkilles and with him, had children.

"But one day, the effects of the materia were so great that she was pushed to many terrible and insane acts, acts that would give her the name 'Calamity from the Skies.' They tracked her finally to the Knowlespole where, upon demanding she give up the materia, she did not. Arkilles was forced to attack his own wife and trapped her in the lifestream, eventually becoming that 'geological stratum' that Professor Gast discovered. But long after they hid away the materia, Jenova's genetic legacy fused with the blood of Cetra and eventually human blood continued. The cells of Jenova were enough to resist the madness of the virus which changed so many Cetra into monsters. But when Sephiroth moved the Black Materia, it began to radiate dark energy again into this world. The dying thoughts of Jenova, the last wishes of her to see this world destroyed passed to Sephiroth and to some extent, those creatures.

"Those things, monsters, changed by the resurfacing of the Black Materia. Once they were probably as human as Cid there, but now only their wish to destroy Cetra and reclaim the materia to destroy the world lingers on, echoing faintly inside them, changing them. So we have to go and find that materia and for the good of this world, seal it away." Aerith paused there, unable to explain just now what would be required to seal it away.

Their faces looked upon her, all eyes sombre and thoughtful, each one sparkling with something unsaid and she bent her head a little. Finally, to break this silence, Yuffie snorted, "Alright but I got one quibble."

"What's that, Yuffie," Tifa said.

"Since when was Cid human? He's half tar by now."

* * *

After the sounds of the visitors faded away, the shadow of Arkilles sighed heavily, looking down towards the floor where the young, or perhaps, not so young now Cetra had stood, seeking salvation from someone long past such martyred acts of forgiveness.

Everything she had achieved was incredible; that the Planet whispered so strongly of her, down through the legacy of a 'shared memory' between Cetra, it filled him with awe and pride to look upon her. She was frailer than he would have thought, with a nervous smile, unsure if she should be smiling. But despite the soft colours and the long, wisps of soft brown hair and her soft skin and soft way of speaking; Arkilles had seen the veiled steel in those green eyes.

"So you should be proud," he said softly.

His sister did not answer him. Unlike Arkilles who had chosen to linger between life and death, K'listo had slipped into the lifestream and faded away. The spiritual energy that had sustained her physical form was given away to create new life. That which remained, her memories would sometimes speak to him through the hive mind that dawned through centuries of Cetra existence.

Instead, another voice spoke quietly to him, another figure in a robe but this one a soft green with a white lining to the hood. It materialised close to the door, of a similar build to the Cetra who had left. "I am prouder than anyone."

"She has done so well, in such a short space of time."

"She will keep this world safe, she will take care of it, for now and generations to come." The hood tilted a little, a hint of feminine chin underneath with straight bangs of pale brown hair peeping out. "But she did not ask."

"No."

Aerith had not once asked Arkilles what the price to pay would be, she had not asked what she would be made to sacrifice yet again. She had never asked, and Arkilles wondered if he could blame her, for the knowledge the last time had almost broken the gentle flower.

"I wonder, if she will be truly willing to pay the price that the Planet will ask of her."

"Maybe, but there may yet be rewards to come."

"I do not doubt it. The planet she cherishes and which cherishes her, it will keep her at all costs."

"You speak so coldly of it," Arkilles admonished, stepping to the door and beginning the routine of fading back to the stream of life, a home and yet not a home all at once. But even as he did, he heard her speaking;

"She is truly my daughter, then."

* * *

The air from up this high was cold and it brushed her skin brusquely, her dark hair rising up in streamers from her beautiful, pensive face. Her skin was still alabaster pale and her eyes as dark as the depths of night, filled with mystery.

Her hands were curled over the railing and despite the ague of muscles spent without fighting for so long, she felt refreshed, alive. The burning fire of yesterday she had thought faded and dying was again there, swaying strong in her chest, filling her with a zeal for this life and this place she was in. Beyond the rails of the airship as it flew silently in the night was a valley of darkness and the glowing distant crest of the forest, the spires of a broken and forgotten city and the sea, stretching out far past the white capped peaks. The sky, midnight with a moon that was a bare slinky slice of pearl white, glowing brightly, was dotted with a thousand or more stars.

It had been so long since Aerith had been taken from them, long since she had forgotten the betrayal of a childhood and the fires that burned her dreams. But now, with the re-emergence of the black materia and the threat it could generate to not only Aerith but those who shared an unwitting genetic link with Jenova, the shadow of that memory was there once again, gnawing away at her.

Tifa had no way to express with words the way she felt about this new path, the way she wanted to ignore it all by sticking her head into the proverbial sand and hoping it would all fade away. She didn't have to say such things aloud, but she had seen the same feeling mirrored in Cloud's blue eyes when Aerith had spoken hesitantly about what he happened within the room, hidden away from the world for so very long. In those blue, blue eyes of his had been deep fear, the same fear she knew festered in her heart.

As the wind whistled past her soundlessly, she closed her eyes against the pressure, the almost ghostly tears pushed upwards against her eyelids and in small diamonds of water, flicked away from her face into the night and for a brief moment a wild, fey side of her could almost imagine those helpless tears becoming stars.

"She said that there would be somewhere else, there would always be more things for her to do. But even when she said those words, I fooled myself into thinking that it would be different, that it was an errand, not something so large or vast or… that she would be mine alone." Tifa turned her head a little, black hair whipping around her pale features and her hands tightening more on the metal railing, the bandages pulling tightly.

"But that's not enough," she continued sadly, "It's never enough, there's always something more. I want it to go away, forever. I want to have a future, not be chained by the past. And now, with where we're going, there will be fire and pain and sadness. All I see is a loss ahead of me and the darkness behind me. Am I so wrong in thinking this?"

"No." Vincent stepped from the shadows on the deck to come to her side. The red scarf he wore with his impeccable suit whipped up with her hair at the rush of air, his own banged hairstyle flaring so his red eyes seemed to glow thoughtfully. Tifa looked at him, really took a good look at the man who had once been a turk – despite his own difficulties, Vincent was still an attractive if stoically silent man. His very presence was a wordless comfort at her side.

"What do you think?"

"It is her path."

"I know but…"

"Would you set it aside for love? Is love not being able to say, 'this might be the future, yet I shall continue with you, because I want to, because you need me more than ever when the worst comes to call'?" His eyes burned her.

"It should be," Tifa lowered her eyes to the world revolving below them.

"This journey, more than the previous one, is about us all. We are growing together, learning to fit ourselves together like a puzzle without a defined pattern. You and Aerith, the love you share shall overcome anything." He touched her shoulder with fingertips, only those. "It has already transcended death."

Tifa whispered softly then, "I am scared though."

"Good."

"Good?"

"You still have enough reason to be scared, maybe it will help you face whatever will come without the blindness of those days before. Where love bloomed without dreams of ill, those days…"

"Those days," Tifa smiled and then laughed, "You weren't nearly so forthcoming, back then."

"I have changed," Vincent said gruffly. "It is all your faults."

Her laughter was honest and shatteringly sane, filled with raw grief, fear and sweet joy, it felt so good to laugh so much and for so little. It surprised her so much that even as she laughed, she cried happily.

Because she was sure, more than ever, that she would find those answers…

* * *

…_there was… water?_

_The water was beautiful, a smooth crystal surface of a mirror that reflected a sky of diamonds and the burning fire of a far flung world, millions of worlds, effervescent with energy and life. She walked across the water, the surface as steady as a paved pathway, but each step sent ripples outward, chiming softly with music, every step a new note._

_She wore a rippling dress of black made from the night sky and her hair was long, a river of darkness that swirled out and away from her skin, bronzed like the sunshine. Upon the forehead was the eternal kiss of the moon, the sickle reminder of the love it bore for her in the night, limned with pale blue fire. Her eyes were dark as the sky but as deep as the water below her._

_Far away was a city of glass and dreams and towards it she walked slowly, everything rippling around her and the stars, high overhead, coming down in slow, sparkling spirals of action and love._

"_Be Heartless." The voice commanded her._

"_I cannot give away a heart that has never known love." She replied to the moon overhead, the twinkling eyes of the night as she grew closer to the far distant city._

"_Take from those hearts that know it then, take it away always. Take the love away so that you may never be loveless yourself."_

"_I cannot."_

"_Can you not? Can you? You say so, but time will prove otherwise, Daughter of mine, daughter of the stars and the moon."_

_The woman was on the highest perch of the tower, looking down at her, robed in blood. It dripped down the sides of the tower, staining it darkly, lurid and slick. The smell of the coppery blood made her want to vomit, but she somehow valiantly held it in, her gaze steady and her voice proud under the glare of those cat-like, amber-green eyes._

"_I will **not**."_

"_Then the water will claim you."_

_She sank slowly into the water, bit by chilling bit, but she never once took her eyes from the woman, even as with a screech the horror fell from the tower. Hands clamped about her neck, fingers scrabbling for her chest and with sharp nails, rending her skin and clawing her still beating heart out as the water swallowed them both._

_Even then, proudly, she did not cry out as the sad man in black robes watched just as proudly on…the wavering moon of the second month slowly shimmering, breaking apart…_

…_there was…for now, water…_


	12. Part Twelve: Cracks

_((Nobody panic, I has a chapter for readers - I am back on track. Mostly. :D ))_

**Heart Less Love**

_"I will never be... a memory..."_

**Chapter Twelve: Cracks**

* * *

_She didn't want to raise her eyes and look up at the single, perfect teardrop hung suspended from the girder above her. She didn't want to, but as if drawn by a power far greater than any she could hope to possess, her dark claret eyes lifted and she saw it. It was beautiful, the diamond struck against the steel grey sky, twinkling down at her, acknowledging her. She thought her heart would break, she thought she would cry, but none of that came to pass._

_She stared upon it in trepidation but a hidden sweet joy, before parting her lips to the thrum of rain outside, the soft rain and the sunlight gently glowing through the tear of water. She whispered softly to no-one at all, to someone who was not there with her now, to someone she loved beyond all others and things in this world._

_Tifa said softly, "You were here, all along. I could feel you. Thank you."_

_The droplet of water shimmered and she nearly trembled on the brink of disaster, the brink of letting go of all her pent up grief. Instead, she looked out to the rain and the world, the sky rise of a city in the new day and she smiled sadly... smiled, lonely..._

* * *

Her hands reflexively closed about the waist of the woman who slept so serenely at her side, her dark eyes unfathomable with hidden thoughts. A soft brush of golden hair curled over those shoulders that rose and fell with soft breaths. Softness, so much softness wrapped about that inner core of steel.

"Aerith," she murmured to herself, affirming the name.

She had told Vincent that she would be there for the Cetra for as long as was needed. But, even so, the bitter memories of loss were stuck still in her dreams, dark dreams that she had thought banished long ago, when her beautiful flower had returned to her. Only the sounds of sleep told Tifa that she was not alone, only those kept her from crumbling away.

A noise in the corridor made her sit upright just as she was about to try curling back up against Aerith's back. The sound was that of something being knocked over and rolling away. Frowning to herself in the dimness of their shared room, Tifa slowly unfurled herself from her other half and tugged her nightclothes into an abeyance of looking unruffled. Not bothering with the soft down filled slippers, she moved to the door and carefully touching the handle, opened it enough that she could peer into the corridor outside. There was a dark shape moving about in the darkness, but jerkily almost.

The frown deepened on Tifa's beautiful face. If there was an intruder then the last thing she wanted to do was to go hand-to-hand in such an enclosed space, but then... her dark eyes glanced over her shoulder at the sleeping Aerith. There was absolutely no call to wake her up and bother her restful dreams with this. Aerith hardly seemed to sleep right ever since she had returned to them. Knitting her brows again, claret eyes checked the corridor and the dark figure as she slipped soundlessly out.

The dark figure lurched with the gentle buffeting of the ship: they were on their way north, far to the north and the only comfortable way to traverse the sheer cliffs was travelling on Cid's airship. A strange little hiccup of noise broke the night, and Tifa drew breath softly.

It happened so fast that she was unsure if her eyes had betrayed her. One moment the figure was swaying on uncertain footing along the corridor, and then next there was a hand, planted firmly into her abdomen and the air whooshing from her lungs. On natural instinct alone did she act, and that was to lash out in retaliation with her foot. It drove up and into the chin of the figure, sending it flying down the corridor with a metallic, hollow clang. The collection of chairs that were lined outside the sickbay got knocked over by the figure in a horrendous clamour.

"Urgh," groaned the figure, sitting up slowly and hands cupped to the chin. "God, wha... where am I?"

"Yuffie!?" Tifa said in surprise. Her own foot smarted slightly: she was far more used to having a good inch of steel covering her toes when she went about kicking things. "What are you doing out here?"

"Out here?" Yuffie repeated blankly, still sat on the floor.

"You're in the corridor, and you tried to hit me!"

"I did?" There was a hitch in her voice, of panic, but in the darkness Tifa couldn't read what emotions were filling the girl's face no doubt, for Yuffie had never been good at hiding her emotions. "I don't remember leaving my room at all. I was having a dream..."

"You sleepwalked outside and smacked me in the stomach?" Tifa wished she didn't sound like she had a hard time believing it. After everything that had happened, it really wasn't such a massive stretch to say someone had sleepwalked.

"I guess, wow... sorry if I hurt you... my chin is killing me."

"Yes well, I sort of... hit you back."

"You didn't have to hit so hard," Yuffie's tone hit that of faintly injured. "I'm gonna get a glass of milk and then go back to bed. Jeez, that really hurts Teef..." Still muttering to herself, the ninja got off the floor and sleepily, unsteadily, started down the right corridor to the galley.

Tifa watched the dark figure go, and then looked down at the shadowy shapes of her hands, clenching them into fists. For a split second, when she had caught the gleam in Yuffie's eyes she had been starkly afraid, the terror quivering in the back of her heart. Something in the eyes had been feral; something had been not quite how she had always known the Wutai ninja to be.

Filled with these dark thoughts, Tifa turned and stepped back into the room she shared with Aerith and closed the door with a soft click, her eyes adjusting to the fainter light that permeated their room, given off by the undulating glow of the materia that Aerith had chosen from the surprisingly vast stock which Yuffie had brought along with her. She stayed there by the door, unsettled deeply by the events outside their room and unable to voice exactly why she felt so sick to her stomach.

"Is she okay?" said the soft voice from the bed.

Tifa gave a guilty start; not only had she not bothered to check Yuffie's wounds, but Aerith had been awake the whole time! Sheepishly she laughed, "Uh, yeah, she's just a bit shaken up. So am I..."

"Yuffie has never been a sleep walker before," Aerith said, muffled slightly by the pillow she rested her head on. There was a rustling noise and slowly she sat up in bed, limned in the vague materia glow, her eyes half closed with deep thought. "Keep an eye on her, Tifa."

"Oh, why?"

Those eyes never widened but they flicked to look at her, flatly almost, weighing. Tifa shivered. "One of the things I learned in the chambers at the forgotten city was that Yuffie could be in terrible danger. Just one of the many things..."

"Danger? What kind of danger?"

"It's nothing you could do anything about, so there is no point to worrying over it." The eyes slid away, "Don't worry about it, Tifa."

Crossing the room, she crawled across the bed and took Aerith by the shoulders, forcing her to look at her. A dark fury was welling up inside her, motivated by stark terror. "Aerith, if there is anything I should know, then don't you think you should tell me instead of leaving me with the option of only discovering what you intended days, weeks or even months after it happens?! Am I not important enough to you to tell me what is going on?"

"Tifa, don't!" The ancient shrugged herself clear, tears in her eyes, "I can't quite explain it yet, okay!?"

"No," she said soberly, "No, it's not okay."

"...why can't you trust me?"

"Why can't you?"

Green eyes slid back towards claret ones again, locking there in the darkness. Unspoken words floated there between them, hidden in the slickness of tears that trickled slowly down perfectly smooth cheeks. This time, Tifa stood strong, this time she refused to let it go at just that.

She went on; "If you loved me, like you say you do, you would share your hardships with me, instead of excluding me. If you wanted me in your life, like you say you do, you would let me know what we might face, together. If you cared, like you say you do, you would care enough to know how much it kills me, knowing there are things I cannot help you with no matter what I do. If you knew at all how terribly frightened I am every day, knowing that you could slip through my hands and I could do nothing about it all. Just think on that Aerith; just think seriously on what you have said to me, today and before. You are everything to me."

"Tifa..." Aerith said in anguish.

"Goodnight." The fighter said, unceremoniously turning into the covers and planting her head facedown into the pillows, arms overhead and partially blocking out sound.

Partially cutting out the sound of Aerith's crying.

* * *

The next day was warm and bright, insofar as it could be, as far north as they had travelled in Cid's airship. Tifa had left long before Aerith had woken up, and dressing herself slowly, she tried to digest the words Tifa had spoken in a cold temper the past night. It was right in a sense at least, she had tried to shut out the girl, tried to burden only herself with the terrible knowledge of what she might be facing. The news of Yuffie and her sleepwalking escapade had not surprised Aerith as much as she had supposed.

But even with all those things, something else occupied her mind strongly.

"_It won't be long now," she crooned to Tifa, holding her in arms cold from the water._

Holes in her mind were slowly being filled up with memories, with emotions and with feelings. It wasn't a sudden process, somewhat to her disappointment. The memories taken from her to protect her against the cruel realities of the world were returning, those memories the Planet had suppressed in order to give her the kind of perfect joy she had subconsciously wanted when she floated, bodiless in the lifestream. Many times, so many she could not count them, her spirit had considered floating free, drifting away into the pulse of life that was the world. Hopeful that someday, somewhere, they would all be together again.

"_I'm not an Ancient, I'm not!"_

"_But Aerith, when you're alone, don't you hear voices...?"_

She could almost picture the faces of people she had little to no contact with now, she could almost pin their voices against their personalities. Almost. The memories that made their way back to her in the week that had passed since the chambers were all jumbled in together, finding their places with an aching slowness that almost killed her, wanting to know not only those around her, but herself.

"_No, not my daughter, not her! Leave Aerith alone, leave her alone! Noooo!"_

Her hands clutched her head with a ripple of pain, a headache. Mother. That was who it had been, not her foster mother Elmyra who lived peacefully in Kalm now, but Ifalna. She had always thought that she would stop hearing her quiet and sure voice as she grew up but... that hadn't been the case at all. In fact as she had grown up, if anything, that voice in her heart had grown stronger.

Tears stung her eyes; the voice haunted her mind long after the scream had cut off. It shivered there, soundless and dripping agony.

"Mom..." she whimpered.

"Aerith?"

Snatching hands from her head, one scrubbing quickly across her eyes, she looked towards the door and Cid, who was stood there. No cigarette hung from his lips today, his blue eyes were focused and thoughtful, stubble crossing his jaw line. He still wore those pilot clothes of his, only he had discarded the bomber jacket and scarf, wearing a simple white undershirt and dungaree straps clearly visible, the pockets of the dungarees stuffed with plans and a wrench on the very verge of dropping out.

"Cid, hey... what's up?"

"Hmm, you need a moment t'get your head round yourself or can we talk serious business for the moment?"

"No it's fine, I was just thinking," Aerith sat up straighter. She hadn't really paid attention to where she had gone, but somehow her steps had brought her around to the San of the ship, the neatly packed away utensils, the starched linen on the beds, the waving white curtains to cut each bed from the next and the wide window where she sat, blinds shuttering out half the light of the pale and cool north. "I came here to think, it's a calm kind of place. No one's sick right now so, I thought I'd at least get a bit of peace and quiet, you know?"

"No, I understand, so anyway, I wanted to talk about our destination," he came across to where she was, settling down onto a stool by her with a heartfelt groan. As she moved automatically to try helping him, he waved her advances off. "Don't fuss, I'm old not sick."

"The smoking doesn't help you know..." her voice withered away under the flat stare her gave her, then an impish little smile caught and tugged the corners of her mouth. This was much like old times, she mused, this was how it should be.

"I was thinking, about where we'd be going. The Knowlespole is a given, that's where the lifestream is the strongest after all, and where that black materia fell."

"True but," Aerith hesitated; she had other things that crowded at her mind, things she wanted to be sure of before taking more steps forward. "Can we go to Wutai after we head north? There are matters there that need to be dealt with."

"Mmm whats our crazy ninja got into this time?"

"Y-yuffie?" Aerith laughed, "Nothing!"

"I'm old, not dumb." He made a pass at his mouth, and then shrugged as his fingers brushed air, so used to having the cigarette hung there. His attempt at being nonchalant made the little smile quiver on the verge of a full blown grin. "Alright, well, y'got your reasons and you'll tell us when you're ready, like you always do. We ain't gonna be hitting the Knowlespole right away. The vampire made noise about his paperwork and little miss exuberance backed her boss to the hilt. So we're gonna swing by Nibelheim and pick up their paperwork, it won't take too long to do."

"Oh Nibelheim... Isn't that near to the Rocket Town right? Are you going to pass by and see Shera?"

Cid choked on his own spittle, "Why the hell would I go and do that for!?"

"Well, don't you miss her?"

"What's there to fucking miss? Cold dinners, complaining and nagging, slow as the glaciers when doin' anything? Hell girly, ain't shit to miss!"

Aerith bit her lip, the smile was nearly a big grin – Cid swearing meant only one thing: she had put her finger into the hornets' nest of complex emotions that came about his feelings for the ditzy scientist who worshipped the very ground he chain-smoked on. "Sorry I brought it up!"

"Yeah we-"

Her eyes glazed a little, his voice dimmed. There was something that he had said that had triggered a memory, a vague brush of colours and voices, of sensations in her head and heart. It was there, pulsing into life slowly, growing gently into the new day. There was a tiny kitchen dominated by a large table, the floor oddly clean despite the oily boot marks that made their way into the house from the back door. A woman in a white lab coat made tea in cups of odd patterns, no single one matching, several chipped, bustling with the hot water in the kettle from the stove, wisps of brown hair and massive glasses she seemed to hide behind.

"She made us tea," she whispered, Cid's voice stopping dead, "She wore a white lab coat, she smiled nervously and her hands have... long clever fingers. She asked me if I took sugar, or milk... I don't like tea with sugar... I laughed, Tifa said, I was sweet enough. She was quiet, polite, her tea was good... and the in you came, tracking dirt and oil... feet on the table..." Her vision sharpened and she looked at Cid's face. It had grown pale with wonder.

"You remember that," he said, sounding strangled and relieved.

"I do remember that."

"How?"

"I... It just came back to me, when we spoke about Shera... I can even remember those goggles you wore, the flowers in the vase, the strange sound of all the engines running." Aerith touched her cold face, feeling tears, happy tears she decided. "I really did remember."

"Aerith, that's wonderful!"

She smiled, and then frowned a little, "Cid, when I was in those chambers..."

As she was speaking, a voice on the tannoy blared, making them both jump. Unsettled, she clenched fists into her skirts and blushed. Cid just grumbled about turning down the volume on the system and finding an operator that didn't sound like he was choking on porridge. "Sorry, hey, don't look so frightened," he soothed, "You were saying?"

"N-no, it's nothing, silly ramblings, forget it!" She laughed nervously.

Cid regarded her with sceptical blue eyes, then shrugged, "Well alright, so, Knowlespole after Nibelheim, nothing else you wanna do, nowhere you wanna go?"

"Nowhere else."

"Say ah, it's none of my business mind you, but did you and Tifa have a fight," he stood up, picking up the wrench that had fallen out.

Aerith looked out of the window, the light hiding her own eyes from him, burning away her sadness, "Yeah, we did."

"Well, hey, if there's one thing I've learned, never go to bed angry with each other. If ya'all are gonna fight more than one day, sleep separately. It'll cut down on the screaming that the rest of us can hear, and saves me gil-loads in pottery."

"I'll remember that, Cid."

She didn't see him go, she was watching the light

* * *

_She raised her eyes from pressing a hand around the cut on her arm, slivers of red blood trickling over trembling fingers, her glance looking around for the source of the voice. The control panel for the plate blinked on and off, changing numbers as it slowly counted down to the destruction of the support pillar that kept the slice of metal from crushing the residents beneath it. Cloud was groggily shaking off the effects of some memory or the other, Barrett looked a shell shocked as she did. But her dark eyes slowly found them drawn to the one noise that had not been there seconds before: the clicking and whirring of the helicopter blades in the air, slicing and stabbing through viciously._

_The man stood on the ledge was calm and collected in a dark suit, long hair held back from his face with a simple band and smoothed into place so firmly that not even the whirring blades whipped strands of hair free. The dot in the centre of his forehead, between his brows, was dark, as dark as his distant eyes._

_Words, all kinds of words, he spilled them back and forth and when something at his side stirred and raised its head, her heart clenched in cold agony. The gripping, eating fear chewing away at her from the inside, Aerith looking down at them, surging half upright to cry out; "She's alright, she's safe!"_

_Marlene, the thoughts of safety, of the little girl, in her dangerous situation. The green eyes of life, of love and hope, locked firmly to her face, knowing they would understand._

_The hand that came out of nowhere was more a fist than a slap, hard, brutal, bruising her pale cheek and knocking Aerith to the floor of the helicopter._

_Tifa saw red, Tifa saw flames..._

_...and jump, jump to the stories shared between them and the frail, tired looking foster mother, Elmyra. Stories of a childhood spent in abject terror, for such a young girl to endure horror after horror, and then be hunted relentlessly when she was finally out of the ShinRa labs..._

_...and oddly, she found herself thinking of Zack. Zack Fair, that brash and bright young Soldier who had come to their sleepy little town, with brilliant blue eyes and a cocky little grin. To Aerith, Zack had been the first to reach his hand out, the first to genuinely try and look behind those soft green eyes. He had given her the gift of the sky, she said, the gift of freedom._

_Tifa had evolved beyond jealousy, even in her dreams, for the memories of the Zack who cajoled her each step of the way up the Nibelheim mountains, and the stories Aerith told with shy little laughs about their time together, they formed the image of a man who was kind, gentle and fun loving. She knew, without sadness, that if she had not turned up, if Zack had not passed away protecting Cloud, then he would have been a good match for Aerith._

_But, Zack was gone, and Fate had other plans in store for two souls seeking deep comfort, with unspoken need that would flourish into stormy, helpless love against all odds. In a way, for the Aerith that was so resilient, she loved Zack too. For Cloud, for herself, for the memories of her village, she loved him well too._

_And Aerith... her bitter words hung there between them._

_A slap to the face that was more like a fist._

_A slap to the face._

_A **slap**._

_The hand, going up, raising, for the slap and then..._

_...the sound of flesh hitting leather was loud, shockingly loud even against all the noise and she said softly, holding his wrist in a death grip, "No one hurts my flower."_

_...not even me..._

* * *

They made good time to Nibelheim, time enough that Tifa was still wrangling over her dreams and apology to Aerith. Time enough that Aerith had space to think and reason with herself. Time enough that Cloud after watching both girls struggle, had finally took to actually cooking by his self: something that he turned out to be surprisingly better at than he had been all those years back.

It was not long after the mid-afternoon snack, which had left everyone to wander around the town, which had benefited from the business that Vincent and Reeve's company had brought in, bustling through shops and new exotic trends. Vincent and Yuffie however, went to the mansion, where his office was located. She had been fearful of crossing that threshold, the memory of blood on the walls burned into her mind, burned strongly there. But inside, clean-up crews had been sent around at Vincent's order, the place clean, free of the smell of blood and death, clear.

Vincent, still a man of spare words, huddled at his desk with a kind of possessive behaviour she found herself curiously drawn to, looking at him as he shuffled papers together, watching how his clever hands ticked over the figures on a calculator, the lurid glow of the flip-lid computer painting him, and to some extent, her in soft light green.

She hated admitting it, but she was sort of jealous.

Her chin throbbed, a memory of that mocking blow Tifa had given her, and the plaster on the cut that she had refused to have healed was a reminder to lock her door at night. When she had been a child, sleepwalking had been a very bad issue, once she had gone halfway up the Da Chao before an attendant found her. Tales she had been told of her almost falling into the village pond, catching colds from nights roaming, nearly setting her robes on fire. It had been so bad, not that long after her mother's death that her father had taken to locking her room at night.

She had resented it. Perhaps that why she still wanted her own freedom in a way... the sleepwalking she had at least grown out of as time had gone by.

He tapped at the keys, pausing only once to look at her. Yuffie jumped, feeling those eyes on her, she had been staring too long at the painting on the wall. Just as soon as they slid away, she relaxed and looked down, blinking at the scratch in the floorboards that varnish had not quite lacquered over. To her eyes, though, the words were bright in the dimness.

_...down the stairs... down there, he is the demon... paying penance..._

"Penance?" Vincent rumbled.

"Ah oh, I was j-just thinking," she turned around, burying a hand into her black locks of hair, "You know, I was reading this manga... it's a type of art book that Shake made kind of popular with the kids back home and it was about penance and er, stuff."

"Stuff..."

"Yeah, you know, never mind, boring, right?"

That look was considering and she wondered if she was sweating – her tongue felt as though it was stuck to the roof of her mouth. "You know what else, now is a good time to try and look busy and make tea?"

"Mmhmm," the tall dark man agreed, looking back to his work.

"You want one?"

He didn't reply, that was his version of 'no'. Yuffie had spent too long being employed by him to not know the little signs that passed around him. Making a sort of little bend at the waist – okay, so she wasn't in Wutai but some habits never broke – and stepped out, shutting the door behind her. The tense atmosphere was still there though, even despite the fact she was outside now, sweat cooling on the bare parts of her skin.

_...in the third bedroom, there is a staircase... there is the dark way down, down into the depths, the abyss of where dreams were made... I know you can hear me, come to me... come to me..._

Yuffie tilted her head, it felt heavy, and she felt weary. But the curiosity in her was almost blinding, and slowly, jerkily, she started making her way up the twin staircase, towards the third bedroom, or more accurately, the first room to the right of the stairs. She stood there, swaying in the doorway. What was this voice? It was so strange... it was so familiar...

_...open the door..._

She moved to a solid section of the wall and pressed her hands to the stones there, weights shifting under her sure touch and it slid away, revealing the spiral down.

"What... who's there?"

Yuffie blinked, there were voices down there. Moving on careful feet, unaware that shadows slipped along around her, encouragingly, she started down the spiral, hands held cautiously and ready. She had materia equipped should worse come to worst. The spiral fluted downward into an open area, a corridor hewn from stone, blocky and rough still. In brackets on the wall were dead lights, that sometimes sparked with attempts at life.

The voices were so loud. She came to the door and looked down.

The doorjamb rattled. It shook the handle, some of the door, rattling frantically.

"...Hello?"

Yuffie reached for the door handle.

It flung open just as she touched it, then she screamed, looking into the blackness within.

Hands, inky as night, reached through and grabbed her, tore her clothes, her skin and dragged her, screaming, into that blackness.

It slammed shut onto sudden silence.

* * *

_Her dreams were not her own, her nightmares rather. They killed her senses, she screamed soundlessly._

_She saw flames, burning flames as high and as hot as she could ever dream of them being. She drowned in green liquid, choking her. She felt the blade, sharp and swift. She felt the pain of it all... the pain of people she loved, she cared for..._

"_...take it all away," a voice was saying softly._

"_What?" Yuffie opened her eyes, looking around, it was a lake of black water, a February moon rising high and blue into the midnight sky, so it glowed unearthly. The reflection rippled in the water she stood upon, as she turned around._

_A woman, adorned in black, hooded and with a pointed chin. But what caught her attention were amber eyes, green eyes, shifting between those colours, reptilian almost. Yet, the voice she spoke with was soft, gentle and loving. It was her mother's voice._

"_Mother?" she whispered._

"_My child, you have grown so strong... shall I tell you, who killed me?"_

_Thoughts fled._

_Her mother, dead outside the clinic she had run as the town's healer and doctor... Her mother with the bandana of the Kisaragi family torn from her head to lie in the bloody puddle by her... Her mother, gentle hands, gentle smiles and gentle hearted... Her mother, the woman she had wished she would be, the woman she had failed to be._

"_Who... who?!"_

_The eyes glinted, "Cetra. They killed me. I was a traitor."_

_Yuffie's hands clenched hard, "Cetra!"_

"_One left... take revenge for me... take that revenge for me, my child, my lovely child!"_

_She was fading. Yuffie shrieked and tried running to her, legs bogging down into the dark water. "Mother! MOTHER!"_

"_Revenge, honour, the Wutai way..."_

_She sank into the dark water quicker now, filling her heart with it... losing her heart... there was love there, there was... Vengeance. She reached for the fuuma shuriken she always kept with her, and with a scream of rage, lifted it._

_-Aerith thinks she's such a goddamn martyr... then I will too, my vengeance, your second death Cetra... I will martyr myself too!_

_...and struck..._

* * *

"...You're sure you heard screaming? Well, the door is open. God, I thought we'd sealed this place."

"I must have forgotten to get around to it."

"Nicely done, Vincent! We were planning on checking it out down here though; I remember Reeve said something about scientific research that wasn't entirely bad."

"Reeve does that."

"You know, this place, it's not turned out too bad. I remember when you came out of here... you looked a real mess."

"Thanks."

"It's okay; I have a great talent with words sometimes."

Their voices slurred, she could feel the metal, her hands felt dead on the ground. She was slumped facedown just before the door, and with her dim gaze, she saw their feet finally. She clenched herself for it, the Wutai way.

"Yuffie! Oh my **god**, she's been stabbed with her own weapon... and there's more bloody writing on the walls! '_Die, Cetra, Die all of you'_?! Vincent, run, get help! Yuffie, Yuffie can you hear me? **Yuffie**?"

...she heard her, but it was dim... and the shadows in her vision made the shape of her mother at the end of the corridor, watching... with glittering serpent eyes...

"Yuffie, _**say**_ something!?"

She exhaled, bloody lipped, "_Mother_..."


	13. Part Thirteen: Distance

**-: Heart Less Love :-**

_Oily marks appear on walls  
Where pleasure moments hung before;  
The takeover, the sweeping insensitivity  
of this still life..._

_-Hide and Seek – Imogen Heap-_

**Chapter Thirteen: Distance**

* * *

_She trembled._

_For a moment, sanity peeked through the curtain._

_For a moment, she stood on the outside, watching herself through the slick glass that kept them apart._

_For a moment, she beat on the glass and screamed._

_But that moment passed, the tremors in her hands vanished and with a cry, she lifted the shuriken overhead and with a sudden, sharp jerk, plunged it down. Fear fled, only anger filled her, pain was muted to a distant buzz in her mind. The blades of her shuriken were sharp as a razor, cutting through skin, muscle and organs with terrible accuracy._

_For a second, she almost felt the single tear sliding down her remorseless cheek._

_She was falling face first onto the floor, she was falling slowly, and when she struck the floor the water rippled outwards from her in a pattern of concentric circles, fading slowly into the smooth sheet of nothingness that the water represented. Her hair soaked up the water, her skin bathed in the rotten sickness of it. But her eyes, that she closed eyelids over, burned._

_She was bleeding, she knew that, but every drop from her veins was a sour victory._

_The laughter of her mother destroyed the sanity that had been skirting nervously around her, the shards of it scattering and gone..._

* * *

It was Tifa's face; that lovely face filled with fear and apprehension that jerked Aerith out of her brooding. It caught her heart and filled it with dread, a feeling she wasn't entirely accustomed to still. It was the hand that held hers, shaking helplessly and the words that tripped over themselves, trying to apologise, trying to tell her not to look too hard, trying to buffer it.

Vincent had come for her, as she had spent the evening in that melancholic state, and told her that Yuffie had been found injured in the ShinRa mansion and her healing talents were needed. The name appendaged to the mansion had already given her enough fear in her life, that stepping inside of it seemed unreal. But down the staircase, down the winding steps back to that place where they had found Vincent in his slumber, where they had found the hidden laboratories and libraries of previous scientists who had lived with cobwebs and sinister mysteries; down here she trembled too.

Yuffie was curled over on her front, face to the dirt, a small puddle of blood under her middle as she lay partially on her side. The reason for the odd posture was quickly made clear to Aerith's eyes, that being the shuriken which was half embedded into the ninja's middle, the sharp blade of the weapon known as Conformer was buried deep enough to cause serious damage.

Tifa babbled something in near hysteria, and she understood why.

Kneeling at Yuffie's side, she put a cool hand out to the unconscious girl's brow and felt for fever. She felt curiosity more than anything.

Had this been how she had looked too, crumpled in death on a crystalline altar, pale and distant? Only the difference here was, Yuffie had managed to miss a vital artery, and Aerith's skill with magic had grown almost exponentially since her death and sojourn in the Lifestream. The blood dripped slowly; every so often her heightened senses fuelled by this strange fear could hear it.

"Tifa, can you please find Cid and tell him I will be using the San on the ship? Also, find Vincent and Cloud; tell them to rig a litter so we can take Yuffie from this place."

"But..."

"Please. Do as I say, for Yuffie." She didn't look at Tifa; the sting of those words was still very fresh. She didn't have to look up either to know the mixed emotions that would be vying for dominance in those claret eyes.

"Alright, I will," Tifa said, in a voice close to tears.

Aerith squeezed her eyes shut as Tifa fled up the winding stairs, hands clenching as she did so. She hated this, she didn't know how to apologise and if she couldn't figure it out soon, they'd only end up hurting each other even more. Sure, Aerith had always known that couples fought once in a while, but this was hurting her and Tifa, more so because of their unique circumstances.

Would harsh words be the last things they say to each other, should a calamity befall them again?

She focused her attention on Yuffie, somewhat glad of a distraction to the mess she was making of her personal life yet again. Her cool hands moved to the blade buried in the stomach area, and she tilted her head. "Yuffie, what happened...?"

"_Brother, what happened?"_

She blinked slowly, less startled by the voice than a normal person would have been. It didn't help that she recognised the voice. "K'listo?" she said softly.

_Her hands had his blood on them, her hands shook gently. His face was pale and his eyes fevered, burning with hidden emotions. "Sister..."_

She looked at her hands, Yuffie's blood stained them, and then she looked towards Yuffie's slack features, trying to see the remnants of Arkilles there. Nothing, just silence hanging there between them.

"_Why? Why would you do this to yourself?!"_

"...why would this happen again, and again," Aerith whispered.

"_She was so close; she was in my head... I had to get out; I had to... save me, K'listo, save her..."_

She reached for the shuriken again, clasping fingers about the safe part of it, the inner ring. Her other hand went to Yuffie's middle as with a stirring of the cold air, she drew her healing magic from inside and around her.

"_Save me, Aerith."_

She almost started; Yuffie's eyes were half open, blank of anything, just staring at her. The dull violet grey chilled her to the core, looking back down. She had the distinct and creepy sensation that she was seeing the Yuffie she knew through a dangerous fog. She had spoken, that was for sure, but there was no other sign of life, apart from the eyes closing again. Never once had the body she tended to broken from the slumber-like state.

On the verge of panic, she drew the shuriken from Yuffie and threw it down to the side. It clanged, blood spattering on the rocks of the floor, hard enough to see in the dimness of the corridor. Yuffie didn't stir, the wound in her middle slowly knitting back together with a sort of fascinating ease, forcing out dirt and shards of glass, the skin writhing and knotting as it healed.

"Yuffie, where are you?" She whispered hoarsely.

"Aerith!" there was a call from behind her, and she turned in time to see Cloud and Vincent coming towards her, Tifa just behind them. In their hands was an old fashioned litter with straps to help hold Yuffie in place as they clambered up the stairs. Neither man was overtly dressed up, Vincent in a comfortable looking shirt and trousers with those Turk-style boots. Cloud wore slacks, as he called them, an open necked shirt in blue and baggy jeans with a pair of sneakers much like those Tifa wore.

She shuffled to the side so they could help move Yuffie onto the litter, actually bothering to take note that Tifa wore a skirt and pretty shirt, her hair held up in clips from her face and neck. It looked like she had tried to make an effort to look appealing.

Aerith just watched her, and then looked down at her hands and the blood drying there.

As they worked to buckle Yuffie into place, she slowly took her hands and pressed them against her middle. She felt hollow. She felt broken, just where she was pressing.

She didn't realise they had stopped working to look at her. Aerith peeled her hands from her white dress, staring at the bloody imprint of her hands. She whispered, "I would give it all up... I would give it all, all of it, my future, my dreams and hopes, my pride..."

Tifa was there, hands firm and holding her shoulders, but above her loomed Cloud. She saw concern in his expression; she saw tears in his eyes. Her lips moved, frozen stiff but replaying the vivid memory. "Cloud... its okay... I did it!"

"Aerith?"

"I..." There was a blow from behind. Her sane mind told her that nothing had actually attacked her, but she fell forward anyway, Tifa's hands catching her from hitting her face against the rocky floor. "I'm dying... Tifa... my Tifa... I never told you... I never..." She outstretched her hand. There was ... someone there?

"Aerith, stop, Aerith, Rissy," the choking sobs were there. The choking of air, she couldn't breathe. She couldn't even cry, so she smiled. But there was someone there, who was it? Who was that person...? A hand reached out to her and she took it. It was cold. She couldn't see the glint of golden metal, she couldn't see the claw. There was only a hand.

She smiled, "I guess that makes both of us heroes now, right, Zack?"

A scream of agonised weeping tore the air, the shocked mutterings and she was sinking into the darkness of oblivion again. But he was still there, still watching over her. She didn't need the Lifestream to tell her that. In the dreams that came after, he was there, a bond.

His hand held out to her, his crooked smile, and he said in reply; _"Well, I guess so."_

* * *

_...his dreams and pride... my future and wishes..._

_...Yuffie... Zack... Sephiroth... Scions of Jenova, descendants of her tainted blood by the radiation of Meteor._

_How strange that I should think of them. Yuffie... Yuffie called to me..._

_Zack had resisted the darkness, Sephiroth had succumbed to it. Is it down to personality, or circumstance? Arkilles said there was another, said that scions of Jenova lay dormant for the most part. But Yuffie, like Sephiroth, has a high enough concentration of Jenova in her blood. It is high enough to hear the darkness._

_Going to the far north to hunt for the Black Materia might be pointless._

_If Yuffie..._

_...what happens to that hope I gave freely?_

_Zack, you always watched over me, I sometimes think you even guided me and those others to one another. That sky, I love that sky I was afraid of, afraid of seeing and never seeing. I love the birds, the clouds, and the bright blue of it. I see your eyes in that sky; I see your pride and determination in those around me, and your dreams..._

_...I wish to see those dreams, to see that future. So please, help me... what should I do?_

_...I don't know what to do... I just... wanted some peace with Tifa, with my love and my life..._

_Zack... help..._

* * *

She fumbled the flashlight, a sudden splurge of white crossing the bones of a skeleton strung up by the wire in the crown of its head, the scream she was going to give voice to dwindling away into an exhalation of shaky breath.

"Just how much lies down here?" Cloud was saying behind them.

"Catacombs of research, left untouched by the hands of man for years. How long has it been since man tried to step into that province where Gods and Cetra may only brush across, how long since their sins came to squat belligerent under the dark folding wings of forgetfulness?" Vincent took a breath before continuing; in such a tone that even Tifa paused in her searching, the flashlight radiance only jittering a touch in her trembling hand. "Not for us are those demons or dark places, not for us those secrets and darker mysteries. Yet, down here we come anyway, intrepid or foolish mayhap we are, but further down to delve those secrets like precious gems from the bones of this earth."

"Poetic," Tifa said softly.

"Dark and dismal," Cloud sniffed, brushing a lump of rock with his toe, "And these rooms fit those words too well."

The catacombs of hidden research laboratories under the ShinRa mansion extended deep into the ground. It was impossible to say just how much lay hidden here, how much was choked in the dust of the forgotten rooms. Papers lay on tables, forgotten by human hands, the computer screens blank and dead and the air itself stank of musty decay. Shelves of bottles with liquid half dried into sticky, viscous fluids; the half twisted lumps of materia that had seen better days, charred, melted and left to one side.

"Down here was where Lucretia worked tirelessly, where the genes were stored and malformed, where they played at creation."

"Sephiroth knew of this place, I wonder why he didn't destroy it," she asked, unsure if there was an answer.

Vincent supplied one however, "I wonder if there was some part of him, buried deep, that knew this was where his real mother had worked hard. I wonder if he could not bring himself to destroy that last connection with her."

"Bonds," Tifa mused.

"Mankind, what a cruel race we are." She swung her head to where Cloud was pressed near to the wall, studying upright, human sized tubes, an unreadable expression on his handsome face. The blue eyes were less lost these days, a kind of strong determination marking him. Yet, for all his new found confidence, here he seemed like a lost boy once again, framed with a spiked halo of gold. Slowly, his hand came up to touch the tube. "We take, we destroy, and we never give anything back to this world. What are we, to think of ourselves as anything other than a parasite? I imagine Sephiroth saw that..."

"You're sounding like him," she retorted hotly.

"Maybe. But I can understand some of it... I can understand why the Geo-Stigma occurred. The pain of this world, the pain it must have felt." His fingers slid on the slick outside. "How many things must Mankind change until we are happy? Is nothing in this world to be accepted at face value?"

"Cloud..."

She looked at Vincent, and then echoed his calling of the blonds' name. "Cloud, don't think that way."

"Back there, Aerith said something."

Tifa shuddered a little. Watching the love of her life print herself with blood in some kind of obscure, helpless pain, it had been nothing short of horrific. The wide green eyes, sightless but seeing, the bloodless lips and blackout... But, what had any of that to do with the words she had said? "I don't understand."

"Her pride, her dreams..." She could swear there were tears in his brilliantly blue eyes, "Words I had heard before, long before she spoke them."

"From who?"

"Zack, you remember him, don't you?"

"The young man who had come to Nibelheim, the Soldier." The black hair and flashing violet-blue eyes, the cocky grin and the self assured air he used with enviable ease. The young man who had opened up the world for Aerith, shown her the blue depth of sky and promised to sail her heart across it someday. "I remember... Aerith's first love." Even saying that hurt no longer, she was surprised a little with herself.

"He was my best friend, my inspiration. I met him before the mission to Nibelheim; I was surprised at what a friendly person he was, considering he was in Soldier. He was everything I had wanted to be, so when I came back here, I was so ashamed at myself, that I hid my face from the townsfolk, and you, the person I had made a promise with before I left. You'd changed so much!" He laughed sadly, "And before long, that world of yesterday went up in flames. I know, I tried to kill Sephiroth after I caught up with you and Zack. You were both terribly hurt. I thought you were dead... I tried..." His hands clenched. "And when I next came awake, I was in green liquid, floating. In one of these."

Tifa studied the tube he was close by, feeling aghast. How did it feel to be trapped inside there?

"Next to me, Zack floated too, but I think he was more awake than me. His hair was much longer... what had happened? Why? Then when I next awoke, I was in a truck, Zack smiling down at me. Where was I going to go, what was I going to do? A paper he had found held the date... five years had passed. Five years of nothingness in that liquid. Five years that Cloud Strife had been dead to the world. I learned Sephiroth was dead, as we travelled across the country, on the boat, toward Midgar where we would find answers, find retribution. I was more alert each day, but the mako poisoning in my system was severe. Zack had fought his off.

"Then at the cliffs, overlooking Midgar, their soldiers caught up with us. Two hundred or more, easily. He told me to hide..." there were tears, she saw, running down his cheeks, tears of anger, self loathing and regret. She could sense that much at least, pity and sympathy welling in her throat. "He told me we'd get into Midgar; go see his girl because she had somewhere that we could stow away until the heat had blown over. But, even though he fought like a whirlwind of death, he was caught by too many bullets, and ShinRa left. Until it was him and me, on that precipice, the rain beating down... the rain was hot, how strange... but his eyes, they were so alive and so determined. His blood on my face as he pressed me to his chest, as he gave me his sword and said, '_My pride, my dreams – I give these to you_.'"

Cloud ran his hand over the tube, looking at Tifa and Vincent. She found herself without words to say as he continued quietly, "Did Zack know Aerith was an Ancient? His death, she must have known the moment he had died, that awful pain of losing someone you love. Maybe I was drawn to Aerith because of his wishes, because she needed someone to stand on the shoulders of to reach those stars, at that time. She needed us all, in her own way. But there, saying those words... they were Zack. Before, at her church where the water lies, on the day of the Gospel Rain that took the Geo-Stigma away, I could have sworn I saw them together."

"You're telling me, that Zack is somehow part of all this mystery too?" Tifa demanded in disbelief.

"Bonds," he coolly replied, "Bonds run deeper than any magic or science."

"But he's dead!"

"So was Aerith."

"But... she's Cetra!"

"And Zack was Soldier," Vincent rumbled finally in his dusty voice, making them break off arguing to look at him. "Zack, a successor to the genetic material of Jenova... it is entirely possible that he could stay as a phantasm to guide her."

"This place... it holds nothing but pain for anyone," Tifa curled her lip, "Even Yuffie was hurt because of this stinking mansion."

"Pain, but a necessary one."

"Stuff it, Vincent!" She looked down at the flashlight, "...and stuff the rest of it too."

"Tifa," Cloud's voice was soft, "You don't forget your first love. You simply build the foundation of your true love from those memories of it."

"Huh?"

Cloud smiled at her as she looked up, "Zack, he was a true friend, he was brave, loyal and kind, not to mention charming in his way. Looking at Zack, at that kindness he showed to me, to Aerith... it's easy to see echoes of him in the woman you grew up to be."

"Huh!?" She blushed.

"Don't think of it as Aerith clinging to a past love, because it's not, it's different and you know that. Zack protected her in her darkest times, and now you do his job too. She just misses someone dear to her..."

"Protect... her...?"

"In the Lifestream, watching, holding her up. Tears for a love she could never confess, tears for a love she knows is true, and can never touch again... a shoulder to weep on," Vincent touched her shoulder. "Nothing to be jealous of."

"I... I'm not jealous!" Her face was burning, she was sure of it.

"Mmm, speaking of that, how long until you two apologise and stop making it uncomfortable for the rest of us?"

"I..." words failed her.

"Who started the argument anyway?" Cloud moved back from the tube. His expression was touched with a hint of amusement. "Girls fighting mean men stay wisely away."

"I started it, I was frustrated because she speaks in riddles and tells me nothing at all!"

"Isn't that always her way?"

"I know, I know," she sighed and sat on the edge of a table, "I really do know, but this time it could be so much more dangerous. She doesn't realise she's playing with fire."

"Maybe..."

"You don't have to agree so readily, Vincent." Her fringe covered her eyes, filled with doubt. "Building from a foundation, huh? ...maybe I should apologise..."

Cloud opened his mouth to reply, but a book to the face discouraged him, soon turning the subject to lighter matters of how lost they were. She laughed, knowing he had been about to say something totally dumb... and feeling lighter for the first time in a long while...

She would apologise.

* * *

_...don't let it control you... don't let it take you... return to us... return to us all... don't let it control you... don't let it..._

She cracked her eyes open, just a small fraction. She was in one of the rooms of the mansion, the linen smelled fresh and there was the vague first highlight of dawn peeping through just-drawn curtains, illuminating the figure that was knelt by her bedside, hands clasped and head bent.

"Aerith, what are you doing?"

The ancient jerked her head up in surprise, those bright green eyes searching hers with a wild desperation, then she smiled in a tremulous kind of way, "I was just... you were so cold. I was starting to wonder if you would leave. If you were ready to die..."

"I'm Ninja... I'm always ready to die." Yuffie sat up, hand on her middle. There wasn't even a ridge of a scar.

"No one wishes to die," Aerith murmured, still knelt, face distant.

Yuffie's sharp eyes picked out the handprint of blood on the front of Aerith's dress, so her own act of violence had awakened those memories. Sharper still, she also found the Conformer lying on its side by the dresser, her heavy travelling cape on the door peg. Bowls of water turned pink with blood took up spots on the small bedside table; rags of linen stained heavily that draped over the cracked rims of those bowls.

"Really? But sometimes a death is necessary. A sacrifice or offering, an appeasement."

"That's crazy talk, Yuffie."

"You know, I hear it... the darkness..." her hands were bandaged and she drew them up to her face slowly, covering her eyes. The blackness inside her cupped palms was familiar; it was a darkness she had created, not this strange madness which washed over her.

"Yuffie? What darkness? What does it say to you?" Aerith's voice had changed tone, and Yuffie lowered her hands to look at her with a shading of disbelief.

"It tells me to take revenge, it tells me to kill... It tells me secrets and lies..." Yuffie swallowed a sob, and demanded just as quickly as she did, "You sound like you already knew!"

"I was told..." The ancient looked evasive.

"Told? Told by who? ...Oh, I see, that dead guy in the cave, what did he tell you?"

"Nothing! It's really nothing!" Aerith shook her head.

"Liar!" Yuffie lunged for her, grabbing her by the wrists, shaking her frail body as if the answers would come falling from her, "Liar! Tell me! Tell me!"

"Yuffie, don't do this!"

"What's wrong with me?! Tell me what's wrong with me!"

"...Before the war with Wutai, experiments were done on people who belonged to ShinRa. Experiments with Mako, and the cells of Jenova. Two separate projects were undertaken, The G and S projects. The results of the Gillian Project degraded quickly, and all too soon, died." Yuffie lowered Aerith's arms, hands still gripping those frail wrists and turned her head ever so slightly to see the figure in a dark hooded cape, watching them. She didn't know how else to explain it, but she knew two things: this figure was long dead, and Cetra.

"What's that to do with me?" She snapped.

The figure held up a hand, gloved in creaking black leather, silence coming as was bid apart from Aerith's occasional sob. "Project S was given a pure sample of the Jenova cells, but unlike the power of the Gillian specimens, that power was able to sustain his life-force. There was no power to create copies of a physical form. The true power of Jenova had lain in her ability to change not only the world around her, but bend the lives of others to her will. The specimen from Project S was Sephiroth, and as the last carrier of those experimental genes, Cloud Strife. But... once upon a time, Jenova had been a living, breathing humanoid. The radiation of the black materia in her close proximity had caused this fallen rider of the universe to become crazed. When it was time, she was trapped in a geological stratum, for the good of this world, fossilised into the lifestream. Yet, she left a legacy behind, that of her children. Half Cetra... half Jenova. True inheritors of her will and powers."

"I still don't..." Yuffie growled.

"You are her scion, Kisaragi."

"...wha...what!?" The ninja turned to Aerith, "That's a lie!?"

"No," whispered the fragile woman, her eyes large and pleading, "It's true. Your mother may have been a remnant of Cetra, but far along back your father's line... there is Jenova in you! It's true!"

"It's a **LIE**!" screamed Yuffie, throwing Aerith on the floor, "A lie; a **hideous twisted lie**! I am not a **monster**! I'm _**not**_!"

_Take Vengeance. Take it, love it and let it grow._

"Mother?" Yuffie murmured, turning to try and find the source of those words, "...mother, where are you?"

"No, Yuffie, don't listen!"

"Shut up!" The kick to the ancient's ribs met with a satisfying crack, and trembling, from head to foot, she spat as the veil of red temper covered her vision again, "Always preaching, always thinking you know best. I'm going to do you, me and this world a favour! I am going to do what should have happened if you hadn't interfered you worthless excuse for an Ancient!"

"Yuffie," Aerith sobbed, "No, please... don't let it control you..."

"Control me? Ever thought that maybe I just said and am doing what everyone else is too chicken shit to do? You disgust me... lie there and rot... the nourishment for the earth is about all the good you'll ever do." She turned and picked up her Conformer, then the cloak. "Oh, and Aerith? Don't even bother trying to follow me. Live your last days happily... and in _ignorance_."

She slammed the door shut behind her, hollow and echoing through the ShinRa mansion...

* * *

Cid sighed and slammed the glass down on the bar, "Man that hits the spot, hard days graft and all I'm gettin' is 'Hey Cid, do this'. Buncha bums should learn to do it themselves, y'hear what I'm saying!?"

"Quite..." the barman looked somewhat put upon, "Another?"

"Aye! And don't be skimping cause yer thinking I'm drunk cause I ain't so much as fuckin' tipsy, y'hear?!" Cid grumbled and held the glass loosely, and was in the act of raising it to his lips as a large detonation rang out, followed by several smaller ones. The glass in the windows of the bar shattered, spraying into the room and onto the startled customers, a massive rush of heat and smoke choking the air mere moments later.

Shocked, and struggling to his feet from where he'd been knocked from the rickety stool, Cid grabbed his pole arm and made haste for the broken windows, only to stare outside in total horror at the remains of his airship and the billowing gouts of flame and smoke that were being sent up into the air.

"**_That's my SHIP_**!" he bellowed.

* * *

She remembered, in the dimness of her mind, waiting on the floorboards and unable to move or draw full breath for the bones broken inside of her from the vicious kick of the ninja girl... she remembered, tears on her face;

_"Rissy?" Tifa cried weakly._

_And with a relived smile, she brushed hair from the pale face, "Right here."_

_"Where is everyone else? Why do my lungs hurt?"_

_The memory was fuzzy, but she knew the plane had crashed into the water, likely stunning the two girls - but the fear of drowning in the water from that dream had galvanised Aerith into waking action, whereas Tifa had just lay there limp. She related this in calm tones, adding, "Because you were dying."_

_"Dying?"_

_"Drowning... you weren't awake. The natural reflex is to breathe and when you've been stunned, instinct overrides reasonable thought. Your body doesn't tell you 'I might drown', you simply do the most natural thing and that is to breathe. I'm just glad I wasn't tired enough that I could swim and get you."_

_Then Tifa was laughing, laughing in the way of someone gripped by hysterics. "My hero!"_

_"Hero?" Aerith went a shade of red, "Stop teasing and get dry. I'm going to look for the plane, so stay here, alright?"_

_"I'll go-"_

_"No, you almost drowned." Aerith stood up, "For me, stay and rest, please?"_

_The wine dark eyes pleaded silently, but she firmed her jaw in response until Tifa sighed and lay back down in the wet sand, arms above her head, "Fine. I can never win against you anyway. Love must mean learning to lose an argument once in a while. Don't be long..."_

_"I won't be. I'll be back."_

_She started down the line of the beach, hair whipping in the chill winds of the night and some way along, she glanced back at Tifa and her fire, the glow on the face of sorrow's beauty and her heart clenched helplessly, a spasm in her chest with inexplicable fear. And sadly, she touched her necklace and murmured as tears slid down her cheeks, "Its __**close**__. So it won't be long at all, Teef. Not long at all, __**really**__..."_

_...and weeping, like the haunted ghost, she wandered alone under the stars in search of others..._

"…Tifa… Tifa… TIFA!" she screamed. She would come.

…Tifa always came for her…

…always…


	14. Part Fourteen: Lost

**-: Heart Less Love :-**

_These days, which like yourself,  
Seem empty and effaced  
Have avid roots that delve  
To work deep in the waste._

_-James Merrill_

**Chapter Fourteen: Lost**

* * *

Tifa heard the scream, head whipping around quickly from where she was trying to douse the fire that burned without any apparent end on the engine of the airship. There had been a lucky escape by the crew, the rest of the ship was unharmed by fire, and only the engines were going up in smoke. But the scream that pierced the air as keen as any arrow from tautened bow string; Tifa knew that voice and the desperation streaking through it.

"Aerith!" she cried, dropping the bucket. "Aerith, I'm coming!"

"What?" Cloud said beside her, face sooty from trying to keep his face clear of the flames, "Tifa?!"

"Keep at it, I'll be back!" she cried, and sped off towards the mansion. Tifa had always been fleet footed, something which served her well now, running over the distance between the ship and the town as if it were no trouble at all, pushing aside people without any care for their well being.

The scream had been filled with pain. One thought dominated Tifa's mind, cuddling up with fear as it did so; that Aerith could be dying, or worse, dead. That she had failed her. That she had failed herself yet again.

She didn't so much as bother with knocking when she made it to the mansion, nor slow her step, merely throwing her shoulder recklessly against the door. It splintered at the jamb and gave way under her momentum, so she crashed to the floor and rolled away and to her feet, ankle grazing a stand with an expensive vase on it. Whipping her head around, she started up the right side staircase to where they had been forced to take Aerith and Yuffie, when it turned out that the ships san was busy with several cases of food poisoning. Vincent had said that the rooms here were clean enough for them to stay in and any infection would be neutralised by Aerith's skilled use with magic.

Her eyes grazed over several scrape marks on the wall, the door stood ajar and the hint of a boot toe tip peeked enticingly through the slice of that open door. Drawing a shaking breath, she pushed the door open to look down at the crumpled body of Aerith, and the empty bed.

"Aerith! Aerith, I'm here, Aerith are you awake? It's me, Tifa... please, please don't be..." She swallowed what she was going to say when the green eyes fluttered open; it was for the best if she didn't explode in a huge mess of fear over the prone Ancient. "Oh thank god, Aerith, what happened?!"

"Yuffie, Yuffie is gone... she's gone... Yuffie... I failed..."

"Huh?!" Tifa looked around, one hand absently stroking the golden-brown curls. Yuffie's Conformer was indeed gone, as was the travelling cloak that the Wutai ninja usually always wore. Frowning, a furrow appearing between her fine brows, she looked down at Aerith, "Is this something you haven't been telling us?"

"I... I didn't tell you..."

"Why?"

"Because it would shame her... because you would all fear her..." Aerith's eyes slid closed, she swallowed hard even as she tried to sit upright into Tifa's arms, then thought better of it and lay back down, "and because there really wasn't anything anyone could do, it was Yuffie's battle, not ours."

"Where is she? Will you explain this at all, in detail, to everyone?"

"Yuffie left, she's probably looking for... ...I will explain it. I think I have some broken ribs, I can't seem to move right... internal bleeding too, it hurts to sit upright... I need a cure materia."

"Okay well," Tifa checked Aerith's bangle, coming up with offensive materia; Fire, Ice, a couple of summons, one of which was that Titan materia. It still brought a faint smile to her face, and a soft blush. Tifa then checked her own slots for the materia, finding nothing equipped there. "...I don't have it."

"Yuffie had it equipped... and they don't sell curative materia here... I need to sleep..."

"What? No!" Tifa shook Aerith's shoulder gently, but the Ancient had already passed out, eyes closed again and hands limp on the floor. On the corner of her lips was a touch of bloody foam, probably from trying to sit up. If there was no materia here to help her, then the only likely place they could get someone to use a restorative materia would be... "Cosmo Canyon. Don't worry Aerith, we'll get this sorted, we'll... I'm sorry..."

Tifa reached down for her PHS and clicked the button. Vincent picked up, his gravelly voice saying just a single word: _"Tifa."_

"I need a new litter rigged, once we have the fire fixed, we're gonna have to go to Cosmo Canyon."

"_That might be tricky. The fire has destroyed the Sierra's engines."_

"Damn... then we're going to have to do it the old way. I know a few people have trucks in this town. I'll see if I can borrow one to get us there."

"_Tifa there is something you should be made aware of. Several crew members reported seeing a caped, small figure entering the ship but vanishing when approached closely."_

"I'm seeing a pattern here..."

"_Pattern?"_

"It's not important right now, what is is that we make it to Cosmo Canyon, all of us, in one piece. I'll radio ahead and let Red know that we're coming. Aerith got attacked by Yuffie."

"_Yuffie attacked Aerith? That's strange; she practically worships your Cetra."_

"Aerith mentioned something about it, but I have this feeling that when she explains what is going on, no one will really like the answers she's going to give us. How much longer until the fire can be controlled?"

"_The fires are almost out, we're throwing sand on the embers to bunk them down and let the metal cool off."_

"Alright. How's Cid?"

"_You want to keep sleeping?"_

"That good, huh? Alright, I'll give you a call when we're ready to go." She clicked the call off, and then thumbed into the pad a new number, and with a slight sigh, pressed it to her ear. Her other hand stroked fingertips covered in hard cracked leather down the gentle curve of her lovers face, sleeping so peacefully.

"_Hello, what is the problem?"_

Tifa almost laughed, this must be what near insanity felt like, "Red, you are –not- going to believe the kind of day we're having..."

* * *

It took them almost half a day to get everyone ready to be moved. The truck that Tifa had borrowed from an elderly couple that she remembered from her youth, a kind old gentleman sold it with gentle eyes and an understanding smile, served to carry the injured and sick across the rough terrain, packed in amongst straw to try and smooth out as many bumps as possible. The rest went on foot, leaving Vincent and Cid behind to look after the airship and to make some checks on the equipment, hunting for the traces of sabotage and what exactly had happened. Tifa had never before felt so glad to leave the darkness of ShinRa mansion behind her.

In comparison, the bright warmth and bustle of Cosmo Canyon was a welcome one, one that she had subconsciously yearned for. In the townspeople she found willing, eager hands to help and a kind of reverence from the elders of the canyon for the delicate flower who lay wilted in the straw, face ashen and breathing shallow. When they took the litter to a room in the inn, away from the noise and close to the hot springs of the Canyon (the waters of which had always been rumoured to hold gently restorative powers), Tifa made sure that she was close behind, worrying at how the room was, if Aerith was comfortable, did they need her for anything?

The doctor who had been called in was a woman in her middle years, with a lined face but bright, joy filled eyes of soft brown and hair that may have once been blonde but was thoroughly streaked with silver. That came as a bit of a shock for Tifa, this woman had been an apprenticed doctor many years back when her mother had been coming to the end of her sickness. She must have been close to finishing what they called a 'residency' to attain her full doctorate. As a child, she had been distant to most of the doctors who could seemingly find no help for her sick mother. But this doctor, Kinsky, had been one of the few who had taken the child Tifa aside and explained quietly the details without being too overt about them. She had not lied to her. She had not said once that everything would be alright. For that, Tifa had been grateful, somewhat.

"Dr Kinsky," she said softly, rewarded with that kind smile, a faint sense of relief pervading her fear-stricken mind as she saw it, "You're still working here."

"Ah, Tifa Lockhart wasn't it? Look how you've grown, and what a beautiful woman you've grown into! But of course I am still here, where else am I to continue studying medicine?"

"Continue, but, you qualified?"

"Yes, yes," Dr Kinsky chuckled softly, waving a hand. She still wore a white overcoat, a high necked shirt in a brilliant shade (today was a kind of pink-red) and jeans that looked as though they had suffered better days. She even still had that pair of tattered sneakers on. "But education never stops, and the more research I can do into restorative medicine, the better for everyone. Where else to study, than Cosmo Canyon? Of course, I heard that our patient is the last Cetra, maybe when she is well enough, I can convince her to give me just ten minutes and explain about how the healing processes with natural talents work." She sighed, and then jumped, "Oh, how rude of me, I forgot. I managed to set a slow heal against her ribs, it won't be as good as her magic of course, from what she told me, she can barely draw breath to summon the magic. But it'll be about enough to set it right so she can get the air in her lungs to use a spell or three."

"A slow heal?" Tifa repeated.

"Yes, I'm experimenting you know." Dr Kinsky rubbed a hand into her blonde-grey hair, the shock shorn to her jaw and a little displaced and wild already, before the hand ruffled it further. "I'm using two types of materia in conjunction with each other; a cure materia and a time materia. There have been some combinations that never worked too well, of course, but you can find uses for almost anything I guess. Such as a sporting injury, I'd use one heal and one fire materia, not only healing the injury, but the heat added into it soothes the muscles, you see?"

"That's amazing," Tifa said, genuinely meaning it, "And if Aerith wakes up, I'm sure she'd want to talk to you about it. She loves healing, she really does."

"You really have grown up though, hadn't realised how quickly time passed."

"Everyone gets older," she chuckled, putting her hands behind her, an eye on Aerith's door. "I never did say thank you for not telling me a bunch of crap when I was a kid. You might not realise it, it meant a lot to me, that an adult could see me as not just a kid."

"I've never understood why adults try and keep stuff from children, more intelligent than we always give them credit for being."

"After you went, it was a matter of weeks before mom passed away."

"I'm sorry."

"I'm... not." Tifa looked at her, "If there's one thing that being with Aerith has taught me, if there's one aspect of the Cetra lifestyle I have picked up on, it's that everything passes, one way or another. I was sad, sure, that mom died, but I was a kid. Looking back, she was sick and in pain, and in passing, she not only rejoined the lifestream but also all the memories of her loved ones. When I pass, my mother and father will be waiting there for me, I'm sure of it."

"That's the best way to look at it. I wonder, you know..."

"Wonder what?"

"Once, humans and Cetra were one race, the Cetra. In time we split into those two tribes. I wonder, with the way the planet is going, will we converge back into one race eventually."

Tifa smiled, "Maybe."

Just as she was going to ask something else, a vibrating buzz in her pocket made her pause and look down at the PHS. Groaning, she switched the message out, then looked up apologetically at the doctor. Kinsky just shook her head, "It's alright, really. I'll keep a watch on Aerith whilst you're gone."

"Okay, let me know if anything changes?"

"I will, I promise. I hear that Cloud Strife is with you?"

"Yeah," Tifa paused in turning to go.

"Wish him the best from me. He won't remember me; I performed a small treatment on him, about three or so years ago."

"Zack passed through here with Cloud?"

"Zack?" Kinsky's eyes softened, recalling, and then crinkled in deep amusement, "Black haired young man, cheeky as they come?"

"That's him."

"Yes, he passed through here with Cloud, I remembered him from when your mother was ill. Cloud was dreadfully sick, it took all my ability to find a serum that when applied, might help him regain consciousness, but before I could hand it over, they were gone. I always wondered what happened to them."

"...Cloud's better now, much better..." Tifa looked away, and left quickly through the door.

Dr Kinsky shuffled on her feet, blinking, and then sighed, "So Zack died too. What a tale of woe ShinRa weaved for everyone." And then she turned back to her patient who lay sleeping deeply.

* * *

The candle was still bright.

She sat by it, knees drawn under her chin, entranced by the wispy and moving flames. She had once sat here, looking at the fire, at the girl across the flames and that wistful tilt to her lips as always. No, correction, she had sat here and watched the fire in the green eyes, reflected back to the world, hiding those mysterious thoughts. It was here, that Aerith had discovered time was slipping away from her; it was in the Canyon the Planet spoke stronger than ever, that the tears were destined to start from.

Tifa blew at the ends of her hair, feeling chilled despite the candle's flame. It was more a bonfire than a candle, but she couldn't help but use the local name for it. It was here that Tifa had, unsuccessfully, attempted to cajole the secrets of the Cosmo Candle drink from the local bar owner. It had been worth a shot.

The glass sat next to her, filled with the strangely layered alcoholic drink, almost untouched and the curls of what looked to be dried chilli peppers floating aimlessly, bobbing in the ripples of liquor.

"Hey, Teef, thinking?"

She blinked her large dark eyes, looking up at Cloud who was stood across the fire from her, in loose cargo pants and a white shirt. He looked strange without the armour he always seemed to carry around. She smiled a touch; his unwitting pose was still an echo of Zack. Coming from behind Cloud, however, was the low slung form of Red, the fiery glow of his tail whipping about in the inky blank that the candle failed to illuminate.

"Red," she said, real pleasure touching her voice, "It's been a while!"

"Tifa, still a wild rose I see. Cloud, you seem more like your self, if the term can ever be applied." The lion-creature slunk closer and then sat. "How is Aerith?"

"Stable, sleeping the healing off. Dr Kinsky is a very talented woman." Tifa picked up her glass as Cloud sat down by the fire. "Fire's such a funny thing, it makes you remem- what are you laughing at!?"

Cloud chuckled, cupping a hand over his mouth. "Tifa, it's like déjà vu. You said those exact words almost a lifetime ago!"

"I did?"

"Yep!"

"Oh dear, you know you're getting old when you start repeating yourself." She smiled into her drink. "But, instead of remembering bad times, I'm out here, thinking of our original journey together, those good times."

"Good times, hmph."

Red's tongue lolled out in an approximation of a feline grin, "Cloud's just upset because all he remembers is you beating ten colours of mud from him after he got a scratch on Aerith."

"I am not!" Cloud's brilliant flush gave the game away however.

"It was quite a beating too."

"I remember when he started crying..."

The Soldier interjected wildly, "I did not cry!"

"Was that before or after he was screaming for mercy?"

"Before I think."

"If you two are quite done?!" They looked at Cloud, Tifa unable to help the vague remorseful little bubble of laughter, "You just enjoy picking on me. And I wonder why I eat so much chocolate... comfort food."

"No, you're just a pig, Cloud Strife."

"We've had this conversation before too... want me to check you over for grey hairs?"

Tifa laughed, and after sipping her drink, looked at Red, feeling the warm cheer of companionship and a good drink. "So, tomorrow, Aerith's gonna tell us what's up with this crazy world, for a second time."

"I could add something to that, it seems like the weather has gone a little bit crazy in some parts of the world." Red flicked his tail irritably, "though why the patterns have been thrown out, is impossible to say."

"Weather, huh?" Tifa looked at Cloud, who shrugged, hands to the air. "Like what?"

"Tornadoes in Junon, a drought in Mideel, rain in Costa del Sol..."

"So, not-typical weather then, great, as if there weren't enough problems."

"Where are Cid and Vincent?"

Tifa grimaced, "After the ship blew up and once we got Cid back to speaking a civilised language, they decided to pick over the wreckage and discover how the sabotage had been done. There's no doubt it was Yuffie, the eye witness accounts all point to it being her. The kind of mobility, the raw speed, the shadow and cloak... I just wish we had some idea of why she did it. It's not like any of us had anything with her, like an issue. Yuffie's part of the family. We've watched her grow from a snotty and awful teenager, into a young woman worthy of praise." She shook her head, "But I would dearly love to crack her a few times across the face for hurting Aerith."

"Violence solves nothing, Tifa."

Cloud snorted, "You clearly haven't been chased across Cosmo Canyon by her before then, have you?"

There was a long silence then, as they all retreated into their thoughts, staring at the bonfire and the hungry flames. Tifa swirled the alcohol in the glass, watching the pretty merging patterns.

Finally, she said, "I am glad I got to return here again."

_Mother would have liked the peace of this place... mother..._

* * *

_This is the last letter I will write to you..._

She lifted her hand before she opened her eyes, the fingers moving to press along the ridges of bones that made mountains of ribs, the soft flesh that covered them, the wince of a bruise that was brushed up against. There was a hollow rush of air as she breathed in deeply, then and only then, she looked up at the ceiling, the patchwork tiles laid haphazardly on the stone hewn surface. She was in a comfortable bed that still smelled faintly of straw and the dark of night blew fresh from outside the open window of the sparsely furnished little room she was in. The cold and clinical way it had been decorated in suggested louder than words that she was in a sickroom of a kind, her boots neatly placed by a chair, where her clothes were washed and folded, close to a suitcase, a small travel one, of her other clothes and minor belongings.

Aerith sat up gingerly in bed, one hand still cradling her side. A thousand memories crashed and whirled in her head, each one painful in clarity, each one tender and a simple part of her soul that vied for the first spot to fall into place. What had she been dreaming of?

Her eyes trickled to the white and blue patterned covers that were hitched up around her knees, her golden-brown hair loose around her and the heavy bangs covering her green gaze. Zack, she had been dreaming of him, she had been dreaming of the time before she had been totally caught up into this world.

Naively, she had thought that the day she had met Cloud Strife it had all begun. That was wrong, she knew that. It had happened before she was even born; she had been brought into this world with her path already laid out for her. Aerith Gainsborough could never have been normal.

It made her kind of sad to think of that. Cloud, Tifa... the ones she loved had had that chance to escape from this tricky woven web. But simply because of who her parents were, she had never had the chance to get away from it all.

"What are we all doing here," she whispered, clenching her teeth as her mind felt around the edges of the strange materia spell cuddling up to her injury. Plucking it aside deftly, she drew breath, and then exhaled slowly. The wind came to her call, the simplest of healing for her body. The water inside her stirred and her blood moving sluggishly, then a bit faster, to the area she was wounded at. Together, body and magic wove together, the bruise vanishing and the bone knitting with almost miraculous speed. Only when she was satisfied did she stop exhaling and remove her hand, looking at the fingertips, then the lined palm. "What am I doing here? I should be at home, with Tifa, I shouldn't be doing this all over again."

Tifa, she had promised to tell them all what had happened. Tifa, with those large worried and dark eyes. Tifa, holding her in strong arms, carrying her to the truck and laying her amongst the fragrant straw. Tifa, her silent rock in this unknown storm that raged around them, Tifa...

_She watched her as she fell. She watched only her. There would be darkness, but the last thing she would see, would be the most beautiful and perfect thing Aerith had ever cradled close in her life... there would be... darkness..._

_For her. She would brave the darkness for Tifa. Always and only for her... because she could be a hero too..._

"Not quite the heroism I had planned," she sighed, slipping from the bed to get dressed, cold air giving her bare flesh bumps. The clothes smelled of forest streams and daylight dreams. It made her smile a little that she thought on these things with such fancy.

She was almost dressed when there was a knock at the door. Pushing her loose hair back from her face, she opened it to see Cloud standing there, PHS in hand. "Cloud," she said in some surprise.

"Ah, you're up, how's the side?"

"Better, thank you. How are the others?"

"They're doing well; the doctor they have working here is really talented. If you're wondering where Tifa is, she's on the other handset to Barrett. I got a call from Reeve and as Tifa's trying to juggle all the calls at once, decided to see if you're up and ready for some food."

Aerith blinked, "Food, well I-" as her stomach betrayed her with a growl, "...I guess I could manage to eat something."

"Down, tummy," Cloud growled back, and then he smiled a touch, "You know, I never got to discuss some things with you. I'd like to talk about them whilst we get you fed before you explain what happened."

"I guess..." she slipped into the corridor next to the blond, then together they started walking through the warren of small homes towards the inn and restaurant where the smells of delicious food came floating from.

"Zack..." Cloud said finally.

She turned a fearful face to him; she hadn't expected this, not yet. She had hoped he would wait until she was ready; there were most of her memories of him back where they belonged. "Cloud, I..."

He shook his head, tears sitting on the verge of falling, "He was my best friend. He saved my life, countless times. I owed him, a lot. I know, you and him were..." his cheeks reddened, "close."

"I loved him," she said simply, surprising even herself.

That was right; she did love him still, in her way. Her first love, the painful memories of growing, expanding into the woman she would be. The memories of his bright blue eyes like the daylight sky she had longed to reach up to, the brilliance of his smile and the way, everything seemed right when he was around. The first person who had understood that she was an Ancient, and never took advantage of her for it, the first person who had shown her that Soldier wasn't all bad, that the world wasn't out to destroy the last shards of a person who ran from it...

"_I have 23 small wishes..."_

She smiled a little sadly, even as Cloud went on; "The letters to him never got there, Tseng saved them all, he told me that they were locked in a box for when Zack was free and able to come back to Midgar. One letter made it through though, your last letter to him."

Aerith studied him from the side. "I knew he wasn't dead, not then."

"I know, I was no use at the time. He took me across country; he protected me when I couldn't even move. He died, on the cliff, overlooking Midgar."

"So that's why you always go there, the sword..."

"The sword was Zack's, he told me he got it from his mentor, and passed it to me. He said, it was his dreams, his honour and pride. That, if you wanted to be a hero, you had to have these things. Sometimes, even be willing to give them up." Cloud gritted his teeth, "I admired him so much. After he died, after telling me I was his living legacy, proof of his existence, the mako in me caused me to get myself and his memory confused. When you saw me, you remember what you said?"

"Yeah, I do."

"_What rank were you?"_

"_Rank?"_

"_You know, in Soldier?"_

"_Oh I was... Soldier, First Class."_

"_Just the same as him..."_

"_The same as who?"_

"_My first boyfriend..."_

"The way you look, the way you acted..." Aerith closed her eyes.

"I know, you said as much yourself, on the ride at the Gold Saucer."

"_...first off, it bothered me how you looked exactly alike. Two completely different people, but look exactly the same... the way you walk, gesture... I think I must have seen him again, in you. But you're different... things... are different..."_

Aerith's eyes prickled with the tears she wanted to stop but couldn't. "I think... I knew then, that you had known Zack. It was pretty obvious, especially after what his parents had said. But you weren't him, and no matter how much I miss him, he won't come back. Why now, after all this time, do I miss him so much?"

"Everything happened really fast," Cloud said, "Zack died and a couple of months later, you and the rest of us, we were off into the wide world. You fell in love again, there wasn't time to grieve."

"...I saw him, in the Lifestream. He was there, with me. I miss him even now, how can I explain it without it sounding terrible!?"

"You don't have to. Tifa understands, in her own way. But don't shove aside the person you love, because you miss someone. Don't shut her out; she wants to understand as much as you do."

"...I can't believe it," she laughed.

Cloud lifted his eyebrows, "huh?"

"Me, getting advice from you! Who'd have thought it?"

"...you're all horrible," he sniffed, they were by the restaurant now, and even his stomach was growling. "Wow, that food smells great, I'm going to have one of everything!"

"You'll get fat," Aerith warned.

"More of me to love?" he grinned at her, picking up a menu for them to look over.

_No, he's not Zack, neither is Tifa. But I can see echoes of your influence around me, about me. I miss you, but, hopefully, it'll be a long time before we meet again, Zack..._

* * *

Fed, watered and dressed soberly – there was even enough time for Cid and Vincent to show up, looking weary and ragged and be seen to by the willing attendants of the Canyon – enough time before her own clock had struck the last second before she was there, at the guttering bonfire candle, flame fingers touching the purple sky that was fading into tired morning. They seated about it, faces worn and eyes hooded by shadows, but alert, every single one of them. On the PHS handsets, Reeve and Barrett listened in intently, as she folded her hands and stood up.

"Not too long ago, I sat here and wondered if I was really alone in this world," Aerith said softly, her green eyes glowing. "And here we are again, just before the discovery of something that could change everything we understood about this world."

"We looked over the wreckage," Cid spat, he looked in a terrible mood. A cigarette hung unlit from fingertips, half crushed. "It's pretty obvious that it was sabotage. It was done in a way to cause maximum damage to the ship but place as few lives as possible in danger. We're lucky it was at rest and no one was messing around down the engine bay way."

"Yuffie was last seen sprinting away from Nibelheim," Cloud added.

"If it was Yuffie, then I can offer no explanation as to why she would do something like that. If anything else, the urge to travel and see the world was strongest still in her, not only for her spirit but her youth." Vincent brushed black bangs of hair out of his eyes, focusing on the pilot. Cid just grunted an agreement, and they all fell momentarily silent.

This was the moment that she had been dreading.

She drew a shaking breath, clenching hands briefly and then tried to speak; but her voice was weak and died before even escaping the hurdles her lips presented, battling through the tightness in her throat. They all looked at her and she sat back down, feeling suddenly as if she was on the spot.

"Aerith," Reeve crackled over the PHS. "It's okay, take your time."

"No," she murmured, "I've been hiding it for long enough. And, well, we all know what happened the last time I kept things to myself!"

Despite her light hearted tone, the black humoured joke clanged harshly in the air, and she twirled restless fingers into the material of her skirt. Tifa almost moved towards her, dark eyes filled with worry, but a fractional tilt of her head made the fighter stop.

"Let me start from the beginning... so I don't leave anything out," Aerith looked at the fire, she knew 'he' was watching, as he had done from the start, "So you can correct me, if I mess up."

No one else saw him of course, puzzled questions floating in their eyes. But she heard his voice clear enough in reply; "As it pleases you, Honoured Daughter."

"Okay... over two thousand years ago, the calamity from the skies-"

"Jenova, we know," Cid snapped.

"Cid, shush," Red murmured, "She is telling the story of the future to unfold. It would be wise to hold your comments for now. Continue, Aerith."

She collected herself again, so painfully slow in the doing and took a deep breath, "...th...the calamity from the skies, Jenova. What records we have of her only exist after she wreaked havoc among not only the Cetra but the humans, who were by then already distant relations of Cetra, their magic long since bred out. But before that, Jenova was free of the materia's influence, she was free to love and live. She loved a Cetra man. One day, a chunk of a comet, the burning heart of destruction fell from the sky, filled with an incredible amount of sub-psychic radiation. It was harmless to the genetic makeup of the residents of this planet, but to Jenova who had crash landed from outer space; it was lethal in that it filled her mind with irrational psychosis. Jenova went mad... the faces of loves, of friends and family... nothing could get through to her, she went mad and tried to destroy the world. The stories are partially right, the Cetra did defeat her, but Jenova, aware of the black materia's effects, went to that defeat willingly."

"I still don't see what this has to do with everything; we knew the vague details anyway." Barrett's voice was slightly irritated, but that was normal. "And Yuffie?"

"Please, patience," her hands trembled. "ShinRa spent years conducting experiments with Mako radiation on humans, and on infusing humans with Jenova cells. But... what ShinRa didn't know, was Jenova had loved a man deeply, and borne him children."

"Children?!" Cid cracked out.

"Yes, children. Natural inheritors of both Cetra and Jenova strains. It's been over two thousand years, there are countless, negligible branches of those scions. But, every so often, the strains find themselves drawn together, without knowing it. The call of familiarity. Zack on some smaller level, miniscule, was part Jenova, probably why he was drawn to the Soldier lifestyle. Yuffie... is significantly more Jenova than anyone I have come into contact with, and also Cetra." Her eyes looked at the burning fire, wanting to pretend she wasn't saying this. "I saw her, when we first came together, use healing magic so expertly. Yuffie was... I didn't know how to explain what I felt... someone else using the Cetra magic without materia, was I not as alone as I'd dreaded so much? I have my suspicions, but I think Yuffie's mother was on one level or another, Cetra, be it part or whole. But her father's blood carried the Jenova strains too."

"You... you can't be serious..." Tifa shook her head, "W-We'd have known!"

"You did though, when you went into the corridor, when Yuffie ran after materia so much... it should have been more obvious to us all."

"Why didn't the Jenova strain become active when we originally had the black materia?"

"I think... it has to do with puberty." She blushed a little, how silly of her, and look up from the fire. "Think about it, Yuffie was already practising Cetra magic and she was already drawn to hunting out materia. Minor manifestations of both bloodlines. But, if a child ran around with the kind of power that Sephiroth had, or Jenova, then there would be a lot of damage done unless the mind was mature enough to control those forces. It's probably a failsafe built into the Jenova strain. Sephiroth, Zack, Cloud... even Genesis and Angeal, everyone who came into contact with Jenova was over a particular age. Cloud wasn't experimented on until he had passed the age of sixteen, which was when Yuffie started to follow us around. By the time the cells in Yuffie were waking up to the other genetic heritage, she was already away from the influence of the black materia. Only, there's someone else out there, older than Yuffie certainly, and hunting out the materia. It's probably a nobody, someone who was born with too much Jenova in their body, and they found it, found the materia and has moved it. The psychic vibrations of it reverberate in the world, waking similar feelings in Yuffie. She only managed to resist it so long because of her Cetra blood."

Aerith narrowed her eyes shrewdly, "I should have actually figured it out sooner, when you gave us the phone call after Yuffie was attacked. If they had really been meant for me, they could have come to where I was staying with Tifa in Edge. But they didn't, they specifically targeted Yuffie, because of her Cetra blood. The monsters in the hallway never forced their way inside to me, but seemed content to stay outside where Yuffie was fighting. I wonder if Yuffie knows that the other Jenova active in the world is trying to kill her, or rather, the Cetra part of her off."

"...so...why did she...?" Vincent paused, unaccustomed to voicing concern, then he looked away into the night, "...why..."

"I think that whilst Jenova is prevalent in her awareness right now, the fact that she tried to minimise the damage to people shows that there is still Yuffie hidden inside her. She ran away to keep her damage to us to that same minimum, she knows she's uncontrollable. True, the lure of the black materia is another factor, but those facts stand also." Aerith rubbed at her side.

"Then why did she attack you?" Tifa flared. "Why!? If I get my hands on her..."

"Because I am Cetra too, and the real threat to the Jenova mentality. If I can break the hold of the alien awareness, then Yuffie is back to being our Yuffie again, not a crazed danger to all she meets."

"Then, the logical place to start finding Yuffie, would be in finding the black materia." All eyes moved the red furred creature, crouched by the fire, following his movements as he shuffled a little closer to the phs that held the voice of Reeve. "Have you had any reports of where it might be?"

"Actually, we've been trying to extrapolate where it might be, as with the last time we know that the Materia required a lot of spiritual energy to use."

"Spirit energy like the lifestream, but the Northern Crater has been blocked in," Cloud rubbed his chin.

"Mideel." Tifa snapped her fingers.

Cid barked, standing up quickly, "I'll be damned, Mideel is a good place to start if any!"

"Exactly," the brunette fighter grinned, "Remember the crater made there? It's perfect."

"If not there, then I might know of one other place she would go."

All eyes riveted back to Aerith, who looked calmly back at them. She rested her hands in the folds of her skirt and smiled softly. "It's obvious... isn't it?"

"...there..." Vincent replied, "You're right."

"Huh, where?" the blond soldier tilted his head, "I'm about two jumps behind you two, where?!"

"Midgar," Aerith said softly. "Where it all begins and ends, of course."

_

* * *

_

Midgar, where the whirling tide of destruction has laid waste to the landscape. The Meteor falling, the dead reactors pooling useless mako energy, the deepground soldiers, the old experimental hangars and the dark sound of nothing, echoing across the devastated landscape. The broken pillars of metal, twisted ungracefully in ropey coils from the ground to overcast sky, the shambles of houses and sometimes a clean picked skeleton that grins haphazardly from under new growths of flowers and grasses. Old and useless aeroplanes that will never fly again, cars left to rot away over the course of a thousand years or more, roads that lead to nowhere but ruin. All this, the death, nothingness, carefully cupped in hands of towering rock, bleak, bleached and forgotten.

_This is Midgar, where I once lived, city of a million memories and several heartbreaks and aches._

_This is Midgar, where Tifa made her home, where Cloud lost himself, where Barrett fought for the world, where Reeve fought for the people... this is Midgar, where I was saved and damned, where I met Zack and loved those wild blue eyes, where I learned the sky was free and one day, I could be too..._

_This is Midgar; I never wished to go back there._

_But it always begins and ends... on familiar terms..._

_Maybe we'll be lucky; maybe she'll have chosen Mideel... let me be lucky..._

_...please..._


	15. Part Fifteen: Trailblazer

**-: Heart Less Love:-**

_If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us. ~Herman Hesse_

**Chapter Fifteen: Trailblazer**

* * *

_She stilled her breathing, softly so. The footsteps in the corridor behind her that mocked the thrum of the airship as it rattled and rolled around them, they were familiar to her. She tilted her head, chin towards her left shoulder and tried to peep past the strands of her pale golden brown hair; all she could see were the sneakers, worn and scuffed up, the laces left lax on the right foot. She would know those sneakers anywhere as well as the purposeful footfalls behind their loud arrival and announcement._

"_Tifa," she acknowledged, closing her eyes a moment, trying to associate the jumble of feelings and memories that flooded in with that name. Only a moment, or she would be swept away and never return again, and regretfully she opened her green eyes once more, "Lockhart, or Lackheart as Cloud called you a child. Tifa, younger than I am, stronger than I am; Tifa from Nibelheim, who tried to walk the mountain way and Tifa, who after the Nibelheim disaster left the mountain village and was taken to Midgar for care by her tutor, Zangan. Tifa, who met and did know Zack, who had known quietly all along that Cloud had lied, and the same person who also watched helplessly as I tried to save the world... and the woman I love."_

"_I see," was the strangled reply, "You remember finally."_

_She spun around, to get a good look at the woman speaking to her, to find there was only an empty doorway to their small quarters. The clothes she had been smoothing out were held in her hands, fingers trembling and as unsure as she surely felt. "I remember too much," she said softly to the empty space where Tifa Lockhart had fled. "It will only hurt more, now, I think. That is part of the price."_

_It hurt her all the more, for she knew it was true..._

* * *

It was perhaps a week after the meeting in Cosmo Canyon that their airship was eventually pronounced fit for flight. There had been specialist parts shipped over from Rocket Town on the demand of Cid, barking down the PHS in his gravelly tones at Shera, and poor Shera stammering back that she'd hurry everything he wanted up, immediately, as soon as she could blink!

It was during this time that Aerith had the opportunity to speak with the Doctor Kinsky who had been treating her injuries, and the materia properties of the magic she had been using. She had suggested some unorthodox variations on the themes of magic that the doctor had seemed quite surprised with, and pleased at the ancients intuitive grasp of medicine. Aerith studied what she could with the doctor, often lamenting softly that she had never had the money for a formal education in medicine, a fact that the doctor also vehemently lamented.

Tifa had spent a lot of time skirting in and around her, trying to make up for fallen duties until the bridge burned between them by one stupid and thoughtless argument had been mended with words and love and promises. It was in the last couple of days she had actively been trying to drag Nanaki, or Red as they all fondly called him still, from the Canyon and into the wild outdoors. Red told them all that as much as he would love to go out into the world with them all, his duties kept him there, guarding the Candle against the day they all returned once more.

A million trivial matters filled the waking hours, but at night, laid under the stars as they slept by the comforting light of the candle, eschewing indoor beds, she would be awake still. Aerith's mind, active with the shock and trauma was being filled in, piece by piece. Sometimes, she would cry silently as she recalled events – often those tears were bitter and grief filled, but rarely tears of joy escaped too. Once or twice, she sounded out the name, 'Zack'. Zack, a one time love, a first love, a gentle soul that filled a terror fuelled late adolescence. Tifa, her true love, a strong woman of steel and velvet, of words and promises, of a burning haste and desire. Tifa Lockhart.

She told them all, candidly, on the night before the ship to take them away arrived that her memories were returning, almost all of them, to be met with varied degrees of enthusiasm. Cloud in particular seemed torn between joy and pain. She understood why of course, and through the flicker of the Candle she mouthed at him 'Forgiven, chocobo-head' in gentle jest, and received a pained, loving smile in return.

So it came to be that three days later, she was still holding the shirt in her numb fingers, when Tifa had ran away from her, leaving Aerith by their shared bed. She cursed herself softly, berating her clueless choice of words, and unsurprised at her total lack of tact. It seemed she still had to get a grip on certain aspects of her personality.

The tannoy, an overhead speaker system rigged throughout the airship crackled, "Guys, meeting on deck!" – It was Cid. There followed a pause as she looked down at her shirt, and he tacked on, "Git yer asses in gear, shit, daylight's wastin'!"

That brought a smile to her lips, Cid would never change his chain smoking, cuss-filled ways. In something of this aspect of his personality, she felt relief, a mild jab of it; whatever happened, Cid would be Cid. With a jerk of her hand, she threw the shirt atop the pile of washing – it wasn't going anywhere after all and Cid had a tendency to get severely grumpy now that the fire incident had led him to ban smoking aboard his vessel – and began making her way to the deck.

A couple of stair flights on, and she came to the area of ladders and spacious cargo area before the deck, replete with a comfortable lounge and she paused, staring intently at the porthole where Yuffie would have taken up residence, as she always had. This definitely didn't feel right, a ship without a motion-sickness afflicted ninja – like sailing into a storm at sea with a woman aboard...

Aerith shook her head; there would be time for recriminations later – and continued on to the deck, where apart from the consoles and steering column, avidly manned, their small group were gathering by the holographic map of the world. She forced her arms to her sides and to not grip her skirt as she came along gingerly to join the group. "Am I the last one to the party?" she whispered softly.

Cloud quirked a smile for her, "I suppose that's one way to put it."

"We were just deciding the best way to land at Mideel." Tifa avoided her gaze a little – there was no sensation of hurt or panic, just a mild confusion and maybe apprehension. Aerith tilted her head to see – after all, she hadn't even actually seen Mideel for herself. It looked like a small village with a good medical community built around diseases, and a large pool of calm mako down the beach where it was cordoned off by strict patrols. "We don't want to get in next to such a large volume of mako, it would interfere with engine function should we need to be off in a hurry."

Cid nodded, grinding his teeth on the cigarette he perpetually chomped on. "Right girlie, its why we're gonna land here, it's got more forest to crash through," he stabbed north of the clinic village, "but it's more accessible. It was made for tiny flight carriers, not my kind of baby."

Vincent coughed, adding dryly, "A ship with junk in her trunk."

"Don't say shit like junk, Vampire," Cid growled, glaring at him sidelong, "or I'll throw you off and see if you can go bat and fly."

Aerith interjected quietly, "Don't be silly, everyone knows that vampires sparkle in the sunlight."

There was a general round of laughter at even that preposterous idea, sparkling, right. Or even vampires for that matter! Tifa shook her head and cleared her throat, cheeks coloured from laughing, "Oh my, but yes, north it'll have to be."

"Don't make it a too-long journey though," Cloud said, poking at the map with a finger glad in material- he was back in his dark working leather gloves and trousers, the high necked purple jumper that zipped at the front and shoulder pauldron. "I'm not meaning to make any issues about delicate constitutions, but we have recovering people and not to mention, I wouldn't mind keeping the ship within running distance. I'm sure Cid would agree to those conditions."

"Good idea Spike," the captain grinned around a puff of smoke that Tifa hastily wafted her hand through, trying to dissipate it before it got close to Aerith. "So it looks like we're pretty much all set. It's been a while since we were last in Mideel. I'm hoping they recall us all saving the Planet and shit, rather than destroying the town after some giant ass Weapon got himself in a tizzy looking for Cloud here."

"Really Cloud," Tifa grinned, lowering her wafting hand, "You attract trouble even when in a drooling coma!"

"I did not drool!"

"You were in a coma," her grin grew even more sly and fun-poking, "How would you know?"

"I'm a man!" He huffed, "Men don't drool!"

"And I don't sparkle," Vincent dotted in there dryly. "Only on weekends."

_

* * *

_

Mideel is an isolated town built out of a ruin we created years ago in the struggle to save the Planet from immediate death. Before that, Mideel had been home to a booming specialised materia and weaponry business, not to mention the only known breeding area for great chocobo steeds and the rare albino throwback. Mideel's natural effusion of mako from beneath the crust of the Planet had allowed materia to form naturally, in powerful, condensed chunks of ore. It boasted the only known supply of the powerful 'four type terrain' materia, as well as impressive medical schools.

_To this day, Mideel is built very close next door to Clinic, the true medical hub of the world. Mideel is the town where people live and work regular lives, Clinic not only teaches new doctors to be professional within that field, but brags worldwide of superlative facilities, surgery clinics without par and of course, the famed Intensive Care and Mental Hospital. Both of these latter two are of interest to us._

_It was in the former that Cloud was placed years ago, after Mako Poisoning had pretty much rendered him a vegetable with a spiky hairdo. It was so severe at first that he couldn't even move, drifting between sleep and 'awake'. I say it with quote marks because his eyes were open; or as my father said, the lights were on but nobody was at home._

_When he was finally able to sit upright in a wheelchair, I stared for painful hours into his glassy and unseeing eyes. Losing Cloud at this stage was unthinkable. My heart was a raw mass of pain from losing Aerith, would life be so cruel to snatch this last remnant of my existence away too? We'd never been close friends, we'd never actually been much of anything if I'm speaking the truth – but Cloud was from Nibelheim, a Nibelheim that remembered the fire and pain and the bitter blood on trembling lips and fingers. Cloud was that link to a stained past – it hurt. It hurt so much that I couldn't bear it, not alone. So I stayed here with him, and I waited and when the ground gave away, despite my best efforts, I sank into the gooey liquid that was the Lifestream._

_I left the world to those who cared and sank deeper and deeper into the loving caresses of what I imagined was Aerith, listened to the deafening voices and in the quiet of Cloud's mind, pieced back together the puzzle that Aerith had started. She had the edges and some of the picture; it was left to me to finish it and to see the whole picture. I wasn't guaranteed to like what I saw, but in the middle of noise and people, far in the distance, there was Cloud, there was a reality, there was everything I'd dug through dross for the past year or more._

_I can't say I like Mideel, it has a lot of mixed memories for me. I can't say either that we'll even have a friendly reception here, but it's a necessary evil I suppose. The world is turning again on a dangerous axis, and like tracing the steps of some insane disaster, we all return again, to the scene of a crime._

_This time, we have Aerith, so, maybe our luck will be better?_

_And maybe this time we won't destroy the whole village._

* * *

"...she told me she studied here," Aerith trilled.

Tifa looked up from where she watching her feet go, one in front of the other, to peek at Aerith's excited face, piqued with rose over the cheeks. Cid nodded, lighting up a cigarette. Or at least, she gave him credit for trying, as the Ancient just as calmly slapped it from his hand without so much as breaking stride or verbal stream. She somehow even ignored the scowl directed her way, intensified as Cid checked his packet of smokes and discovered that had been his last.

"Who did, sorry?"

Aerith tutted and smiled, "Dr Kinsky. She said the techniques she was most interested in developing were for infectious diseases, but there were all kinds of applications used at the Clinic. I'd really love a chance to get in and see their work. I was so enthusiastic about that I even have a letter of recommendation written for me, by the Doctor!"

"You know," Cid said, throwing his pack at a garbage bin and missing, so it bounced off the rim, "Leaving her at the clinic wouldn't be a bad idea. She's a walking target in the open."

"I don't like the idea – pick that up! – but he is right," the ancient agreed, watching the surly captain as he plodded to the cardboard packet and picked it up, then tossed it overhead, directly down into the trashcan so hard that it rattled. "That's better."

The town that had sprung up around Clinic wasn't particularly large or bustling, but there was a quiet hum of activity; from the students who paused on corners to chat together to the shops airing out their goods and those shopkeepers coming to the doors to look about. There was a visitors parking area that was half filled already with vehicles of varying sizes, shapes and colours. Of course, the Highwind couldn't make it all the way out here, so their buggy had been parked into one of the smaller slots available by the entrance, a tight squeeze that had further impressed upon Tifa the driving skills of their pilot.

They had broken into two teams rather than one larger one. Cloud and Vincent opted to go looking in Mideel with one of the other available buggy cars – whilst they had come to Clinic. A glance at Aerith's face, absorbed with thoughts of what she might uncover here was enough to convince Tifa that there was more to Aerith returning to here than simply following in the footsteps of a doctor. As they trudged along again in near silence for minutes that seemed to stretch thin, paper thin even, Tifa's eyes wandered down to her own shoes.

It felt as though she was trying to hold back tears.

Lockhart. Lackhart. It was a cruel nickname from her childhood that she had thrown at her when they all thought she hadn't heard them. It was some time after her mother's death and her father's initial seclusion, then eventually withdrawal from the world entirely; she had decided her heart was a painful thing to wear openly if all that would happen was pain and suffering, if all that life had to offer was an endless parade of grief and disappointment. That was when she locked it up tightly inside herself, built a wall so high around it and tossed away the key. That was when no one else could hurt her any longer.

In the shadows, when she was done playing with her friends, they whispered callously, thinking she didn't hear them, "Lackhart, Ice Queen!" She pretended she never heard them; it was easier to stop the tears that way. So they all continued to play the little game, that she was actually pretty good at lying. She pretended to herself that her father loved her, that his continued silence and disinterest was merely him waiting.

On a night of fire that reached as high as the stars, when she lay bleeding on the toes of mako reactor, she realised her father had loved her. She realised that some dreams, some feelings, whilst buried deeper than an eye or word could pierce to; they persisted and grew, they remained strong. Weeping, as that oblivion took hold, grief and anger seeded themselves in cracks of the wall about her heart.

Aerith's hand touching her elbow was the motion which made her pause in her steps. They were walking up the gentle slope towards the psychiatric ward of Clinic; it overlooked the shallow valley, the low dense trees and the sparkling vast reaches of the ocean, sometimes blue and sometimes as green as the Cetra's eyes. By the shoreline, where the larger city hub of Mideel was, loosely connected to Clinic by a spattering of houses and a railcar system, was a chunk of the cliff which had given way into the ground and the sea, a soft greenish echo vibrating more strongly from the water that pooled there.

Aerith spoke again in that way that suggested she was half remembering, half seeing something. The distant and unreadable expression on the beautiful face made Tifa's insides knot up with fear; this new and strange power made her heart tense with anxiety.

"And so it was the water brought back the lives of two people from one painful memory. Five years, no, it was seven. Seven years of holding his breath, seven years of her pained hatred. The stars, they went out one by one as the knight rescued her from the fire, but left her soul burning." Aerith's smile grew a little sad, turning her head to listen to the wind, and then adding, "But she is well now, I will keep her so." And quieter still, assuming that Tifa wouldn't hear, "No matter the cost."

"Aerith?" Tifa asked in concern, and those huge green eyes snapped back to reality, a quick sweet smile covering up the lost one almost instantly, "Are you alright?"

"Oh yes, I was just remembering, the lifestream, you can see many things when you're in it, I saw so much." She tilted her head, chin grazing her shoulder, "But we're almost there. Then you guys can leave me in safety in a single place, right?"

Cid stomped on the ground and added as a low growl intended for Tifa only, "We gotta find a goddamn shop selling smokes or I ain't guaranteeing her safety!"

Tifa gave him a long measured look, and then nodded for him to wait as she escorted the Ancient the last stretch of the curving path to the ward entrance which swished open on command of their presence under the sensor. Aerith turned to go inside but Tifa reached out quickly and snagged one of her hands, blanching slightly at the smell of 'hospital' that wafted out; it smelled of fresh linen, iodine and bleach, it smelled like recovery, long and painful and was a scent that made the scar along her chest tingle.

"Wait," she said quietly, "just a moment please."

"What is it?"

"I wanted to ask, you're getting your memories back aren't you?"

Aerith nodded, face speculative, "Well, yeah, but isn't this what we wanted?"

"No, I agree, we do, I just... who... are you talking to?" Tifa caught the sudden guilty, surprised flash in her lover's eyes, and pressed on a little harder, "I mean, I've seen you a few times now, 'talking to the wind' as if someone is there. I've seen so much crazy stuff, and I don't think you are the crazy-cat-lady type, so... please tell me what it is?"

Aerith was quiet, fingers twisting around the fighters more calloused digits, weaving in and out until she finally settled her grip once more and stared up intently at Tifa. "You promise not to think me completely insane?"

"I would never think that."

"...what if I said, that Time as a concept is something that doesn't exist within the Cetra faith? Or rather, that the ability to exist in any given space or time was capable of those who had discovered the Promised Land?"

Tifa frowned, "When we discussed the Promised Land before, it was always the idea of a place filled with Mako energy."

"Exactly," Aerith flushed in a little excitement, "but I think the interpretation is wrong. Cetra were supposed to migrate from planet to planet, to help shepherd and evolve the planet and the eco-system. But the concept of the Promised Land is not only a place filled with happiness but with a power than has been twisted beyond what it originally was. The Promised Land was the Land filled with those who come before and those who would come after. A place filled with memories of those who had lived and joined with the Planet, and that was the Promised Land, where the soul goes after death. The Promised Land co-exists with the Lifestream, which is the river of mako, the power driving the Planet. When it was said, everyone had a different Promised Land – well, you don't want to share your afterlife with someone you hate right? That's why they're all different, but they all brush shoulders with each other.

"But within the Promised Land, Time has no meaning. Years in the Living world, may pass as days there, or vice versa. So, if I told you, that one of my Ancestors was speaking to me, would you believe me insane?" Aerith peeked a look up.

Tifa looked down, her brown eyes softening and smiled a touch, "Oh, is that all it was?"

"You're... okay with this?"

"Well as long as he isn't inciting you to mad acts of bravery and insanity, then no. What does this Ancestor of yours have to say for himself anyway?"

"He tells me about my memories, about my past, about how the future is still changing," Her face looked a bit pained, "About how I have duties to fulfil."

"Is he a direct ancestor?"

Aerith shook her head, "No, he's the brother of my Ancestor, K'listo, who was a Priestess. His name is Arkilles, he married Jenova and they had two children." She closed her eyes briefly, then opened them with tears shimmering in them, "He feels so much sadness," the ancient breathed.

Tifa impulsively embraced her, making low, soothing noises in her throat but staring, dry eyed at a wall and hoping she didn't tremble even as her hands gripped around the fragile ancient tightly. "So, is he helping you to see what you never saw before?"

"I don't know, he says that it is part of becoming a Priestess in the Faith. He says I will see with more than my own eyes, and that hearts will open for me, I don't really know... the world, I see it through new eyes, there are a million new colours. When I hear voices, I hear echoes and silences in words that used to be without a song buried deep in their meanings. When I breathe in, I breathe in life, and breathe out death... how can I explain it to you?"

"You don't have to, you don't... you know, you should go rest, I'm sure this has been trying for you," Tifa pulled back and nodded, "And we'll get a move on with our investigations here. So you don't have to worry."

Aerith nodded and took a few steps inside the Ward, then turned and looked back, "Tifa, I love you."

Tifa stared at her for a long moment, pale golden brown hair and vulnerable green eyes, clothes that were untouched by dirt, cream and pink skirt with a light cotton shirt of lace pink, the signature ribbon tying her hair back from falling into her face along with her heavy bangs and twists. The ancient's hand was raised a little to her chest, and it was all the fighter could do to dredge up a smile, "I love you too. I'll come back, when it's all over."

Aerith nodded again and walked further in. Tifa stood a moment longer, contemplating running after her, then turned and began making her way back down towards where Cid waited for her. The grizzled pilot looked worse for wear, nicotine withdrawal was clearly wearing hard on him, and his piercing blue eyes snapped to hers.

"Well?" he barked.

"She'll stay put, for now. We should get a move on," Tifa pushed past him and down the path, "and get you some cigarettes before you kill everything in sight."

"And if we find Yuffie?"

Tifa frowned, looking at the dirt path rather than the scenery, "I don't know."

"You gonna let them face off, cause that went super well last time."

"Sarcasm helps here, really it does." She scowled harder, "I get the feeling that it won't be here though."

"No?"

"I think we might find something else here... but it's always been about Midgar." Tifa came to a rest by the junction of the railcar system that ploughed through the main street, her eyes lingering on the shops signs, then she turned to him, finding him watching her already, "What?"

"Midgar huh?"

"Yeah, here, go get your smokes," she thrust a ten-gil note at him, "And don't be all day about it."

_The sooner this is over, the better._

* * *

Cloud morosely watched the icy bead of condensation slide down the outside of his beer bottle, and gave a loud huff, partially flopping limp in his steel chair. He and Vincent had taken a break after a day of gathering information at a cute little sidewalk cafe – his feet burned and his throat burned twice as badly. Vincent, in an effort to be obtuse no doubt, had ordered himself a tall latte, a drink completely at odds with the late afternoon sun that was burning a steady tank into Cloud's exposed skin.

"Waaaaaugh," Cloud exhorted, "Today was so tiring. I got no details of anyone fitting her description!"

"You also complained a lot," the quiet ex-turk noted, taking a polite sip of his hot drink after tugging the bullet hole riddled scarf down from his neck to do so. Cloud was again struck with a bizarre pang of envy – it was surely not right for a man to be that handsome. He felt positively plain sitting on the street next to elegantly dressed and immaculate Vincent. Even the golden claw, religious scarf and the glowing red eyes didn't detract from the overall effect, they enhanced it if anything.

Cloud felt one step from pouting, so turned his attention to the palm-pad of information, drawing his finger over the touch screen idly, "Maybe. But we did hear how the weather starting changing massively, and of course the weather reports flooding in from Midgar have been less than encouraging."

"Electrical storms," Vincent murmured, "A discharge of high intensity mako is likely to blame."

"Where there's mako, there's usually a calamity from the skies," Cloud said, not really to anyone in particular. "Yuffie... it seems odd that it'd be the outsider..."

"A powerful clan, you weren't part of Shinra for the Wutai insurgency. Or perhaps war would be a closer term," Vincent's eyes focused on him and Cloud shuffled uncomfortably in his seat. Those red eyes had a habit of making his hair attempt to crawl off his body in one smooth bid for freedom. "Wutai was a proud and powerful nation before Shinra broke it over it's corporate knee. There'll be many explanations you'll hear or have heard but the truth was Wutai was a major power in harnessing and using Mako in crystallised form, or Materia if you will. It was said they possessed great skill in seeking out Materia in the earth and shaping it, in calling forth powers of intensity that no other nation could.

"Yuffie is Wutai, and not just any Wutai, of her Clan she is a Ninja and the next heir to the seat of power for the village. It's likely that the way the structure is in the Western country right now, that they have organised both feudal and ninja into the same category, meaning that Godo is both 'daimyo' and 'jonin' which essentially means feudal lord and 'upper man', the highest rank attainable for ninja. From what I've seen of Yuffie, she is likely a 'teisatsu' or maybe 'kancho' – a scout or a spy classed Ninja. But when Godo passes on, Yuffie will become daimyo. Now it's also true that the power to shape and sense materia is something split between Jenova, the sensing, and Cetra, the shaping. That they'd want to marry this powerful ability into the main family comes as no... what are you laughing about?"

Cloud couldn't help it, his sides felt like they were on fire from holding it in. He laughed til he cried and picked up his bottle for a long swig of the bitter brew, "That's the most I've ever heard you say," he wheezed, "and when you do talk, you want to be a goddamn history teacher!"

"...I merely trying to educate you," he muttered.

"On what, how t'bore people to death. I think I had three heart attacks just listening to you," Cid spouted from behind Cloud suddenly, alarming him and tipping out of the seat he was already balanced precariously in. He got a fantastic view of Cid's all purpose army boots from the floor angle. "You sure are the life of the party, Vamp." The pilot snatched up a free chair and dumped himself into it.

Tifa's hand came down to help him to his feet, a hand Cloud gratefully accepted. "Thanks Teef, any news?"

"She's not here, but a merchant out of Kalm said there's been a lot of news reports from monsters roaming about the Midgar area, they've increased patrols around that region."

"Midgar," Cloud said softly.

"We can probably get back to Edge in a day or so, if we push, then stock up. I guess Yuffie'll be somewhere in there," Tifa sighed and sat down, releasing Cloud's arm.

"Where though?"

"I think Aerith will have that answer for us."

Tifa's face pinched up, then she sighed, "Aerith told me she's hearing voices." She glanced about at the expressions that sprang to the faces of the men, and rolled her eyes, "Not like that. It's spirits from the past, speaking to her from the Lifestream. She's changing, everything about her is evolving and I'm left watching again. I don't know if I can keep up..."

"...has she said anything to you?"

Tifa shook her head, "Only that she 'sees' and 'feels' the world differently, and it's impossible to explain to me. I don't know if her powers as a Cetra are finally beginning to take shape, but it's almost crazy to watch. Maybe it wasn't just the Cetra that the parts of Jenova are worried about, maybe it's just Aerith."

Cloud put his beer down; Cid was already ordering a pitcher of the darkest tarry beer he could find on the menu from a waiter who looked as tired as Cloud's feet felt. "You think she's got some kind of new power?"

"She said, she can see clearly," Tifa stared at Cloud, "She knew my nickname. I've never told her that. Did you?"

"Nickn- oh..." Cloud flushed in embarrassment, "No I never! God, Tifa I'm sorry, it was so long ago and we were kids and well..."

"No, it's fine. I deserved that. I was just a kid too, pretending I was all grown up. I wasn't at all." She smiled, and then let out a long, world weary sigh. "She knows things she shouldn't. It's as if her memory has come back in piercing clarity, but with it, she has the memories of the entire Lifestream. It's a dangerous thing... there are memories that should be forgotten, locked away..."

"...there are always memories like that. So," Cid looked back and grinned, pulling out a new cigarette with much enthusiasm, "Back to Midgar eh? Let's start planning, kids. We got a war to finish."

_

* * *

_

...but the war is never over, only the battle.

_This time, I won't fight it alone._

_Stay with me, until the bitter end._

_Stay._


	16. Part Sixteen: Confirmation

**:: Heart Less Love ::**

Fear is static that prevents me from hearing myself. – Samuel Butler

**Part Sixteen: Confirmation**

* * *

The ward was clean and otherwise quiet.

She wasn't entirely sure why she had anticipated maddened screams, or perhaps the weeping of patients, howls chasing others who fled through the corridors from their doctors. It was none of these things. It was white washed into calm, with each room neat and tidy. None of the patients seemed too distressed, with only a few who made noise and even this was kept to a respectful low thrum of words and sounds.

She meandered through the corridors, peeking in at the patients. There was a young man who carefully made paper planes and then threw them one by one out of his door to the adjoining room. When she turned to see where they landed, they came to a rest by the bare, clean feet of an elderly woman who gathered them up, unfolded them and then proceeded to create beautiful origami flowers.

Two doors down from this, was a young woman who sat sadly on the edge of her bed, holding a portrait in a worn, wooden frame. Her hair was cut pixie short and was stark grey. But her skin was youthful and smooth, radiant. Aerith stood at the door awhile, studying the bittersweet expression on the girls face; the longing and despair in the pale brown eyes, the shimmering of unshed tears. There was a strange religious feel to this, something that drew her to this spot and pinned her there.

After a longer while, the girl realised she was being watched. Without putting away the picture, she turned her head without moving her body and looked into Aerith's eyes with a piercing, solemn gaze. It was so clear and unwavering. Aerith let her eyes travel to the picture held, of a young man in a uniform of a military medic, and next to him was a girl of an age of about sixteen, black haired and laughing. The scene oozed love and life, and when she looked back up; the tears were slowly trickling down the smooth cheeks.

She didn't need to ask to know, the shimmering spectre of energy that formed into the young medic and sat on the other side of the open window was enough. Trailing her hand down the doorframe, she nodded quietly and respectfully and moved on as if drawn away by an unseen wind, leaving the young woman to her sadness.

On the second floor she met two middle aged men who insisted they were the same person, and upon closer inspection she realised they were twins, for she could hardly tell one from the other. They gently held her hands, one each, and laughed and told stories of the world before Shinra globally dominated. They told her folk stories of the Cetra and the wonders they had supposedly wrought throughout the world.

It was on the third floor that she met Doctor Faben, a soberly dressed man underneath his white overcoat, with short trimmed greying muddy brown hair and eyes set too close together to be handsome, despite a smile that warmed her on delivery. She approached him, as he was sifting between clipboards and waited for an opportune moment, eyes lingering over the sheaves of papers, then to his face. "Excuse me?"

"Mmm?" He turned about and adjusted his lapel, then smiled, "Good afternoon young lady, how may I help you?"

"Are you the Chief Resident? Dr Kinsky said if I was interested in maladies of the mind I was to speak with," she fished out the note from her pocket, "A... er... Doctor Harris Faben?"

"That's me, you know Alys? How is she doing?"

"Oh, her studies in Materia Applications? It's really fascinating; I conversed with her extensively on the varying properties of different materia, not only of the green 'action' variety." Aerith smiled, thinking back, "I think the possible implementation of All or perhaps Elemental could deeply enhance the processes she was considering."

"Mmm, are you a doctor?"

"Oh, my goodness no, I'm Aerith," she caught the blank look and in a faintly more monotone voice added as reluctantly as she possibly could, "...The... Last Ancient."

"Oh my goodness," Dr Faben shifted, "You're well... her. I never for once imagined..."

Aerith blushed and looked away, focusing on the small lounge area by the nurses' station where they were stood. It was empty; the television was blank and black, reflecting the room. "I thought I'd come here to ask some questions."

"I see, may I ask about what?"

"How many patients do you have here suffering with Mako poisoning side effects?"

Faben shifted again, this time to support one arm with another as the respective hand cradled his chin, long fingers rubbing at the hint of stubble there. His eyes peered at the ceiling as he was recalling the details, then said, "Currently, eleven cases."

"Have there been any increases or decreases of late, within the last six months?"

"Hmm. No, but, we did have a brief surge in something else."

Aerith's attention sharpened, "Such as?"

"More like clinical depression, if you can call it such. It was accompanied by mild dementia and psychosis. We've seen a rise in the number of cases this past month. They're mostly silent, hardly ever speaking to staff, but it's so very strange..."

"Do they speak to themselves, or as if to other people? And then pause as if someone is answering them?"

Faben frowned, looking at Aerith intently in such a way that she felt as if she'd hit a raw nerve, "Yes, precisely that."

"I see. Can you show me to some of your patients? I'd like to take a moment to sit with them if I may?" Aerith smiled gently, "I am trained as a healer magical, but also have a vested interest in psychiatry, as I suspect this might be the work of the Lifestream. As you know, I am the Last of my people... any information I gather now may provide help for future generations of humans to come to understand my peoples ways."

"Of course, I won't be able to provide complete seclusion, but I'll have an orderly posted outside the door should you require assistance. One moment then, please," he moved away from her, leaving her with the pile of clipboards.

Idly she moved a couple, reading off the names of the case files; A thin man with early pattern baldness and a haunting set to his grim mouth, Jonah Collins. The case of Imedla Kirschten, who only wanted to be outside when it was night among the grass and trees, and slept during the day... The weathered expression of an older woman tugged at her heart, the joyless smile that Teri Oliver gave the world was almost dripping with insincerity.

She pooled the clipboards back together just in time to see that Faben had returned with a young-ish man, late twenties or early thirties. He wore the white slacks and shirt of an orderly, his pale brownish olive skin contrasting nicely with it. His face was unremarkable at best, but he never caught her eyes, instead looking away.

"You can look at me," she said softly.

"Pardon ma'am, I have a condition, I can't look at people's eyes."

Faben explained, "It's a mental condition. He's done well to make it this far, it has to do with insincerity and trust. Anyway, Aerith Gainsborough, meet Kyle Bannock. Kyle, will you please take Miss Gainsborough to room 317, and watch from outside the room."

The orderly nodded and gestured without glancing up at her to follow him. She briefly turned back to the doctor and touched her hand to his, fingertips barely meeting the skin that covered the back of his hand. "Thank you, for your kindness."

"No, no, thank you. In the interests of science," his eyes were soft and the smile genuine, "And because it would have been much worse without you, I think. I hope you find what you seek."

He picked up his stack of boards and walked towards the office backroom, and she muttered, "I hope I do too," then pivoted to follow the orderly. She found she had to skip ahead a few paces of her usual meter to keep up with the fellow; his stride was uneven to hers, she felt so short in comparison.

Aerith attempted conversation on the journey up one flight of stairs and down another slender corridor of doors and pastel pictures, but Kyle seemed completely uninterested, parking himself on a seat outside the door of room 317 without so much as a nod to her. She stood there uncertainly, toes curling in her soft slippers, then with a tut more for him than herself, knocked.

"Come in."

Surprised to hear a voice that sounded so young, she opened the door and walked into the small hospital room. It was minimalistic to say the least; decor involved a simple bed with restraint cuffs and a support on either side as a moveable rail. There was a bed stand to either side, one of which had a vase of flowers. A moveable trolley-table was pushed neatly side to the window where the pastel curtains were open along with one of the windows, letting in a cool breeze. She noted the sun had sunk lower in the sky than she had previously thought.

What really caught her attention was the teenage girl stood by the window.

She could have been no older than fifteen at the very best. Aerith moved further in and closer to the window, so that she could see the face of the girl more clearly. The side visible to her was poignant in relief, smooth skin with delicate features. Her eyes were a dark grey-green and thickly lashed, hair short to just below her jaw line of a dark brown, but held back with two yellow clips positioned in a cross shape at her left and right temple each. She wore only a simple white shift and her feet were bare on the chill tiled floor.

"Hello, I'm Aerith."

The girl didn't so much as look at her, continuing to look at the world outside. The ancient tilted her head; that wasn't right, she wasn't looking at the world, and she was gazing intently at the sky. The sun was already spreading colours of gold and russet into the clouds.

"They say you hear voices."

Not even an eyelash batted at her. With a sigh she wanted desperately to release, Aerith looked around at the room. The flowers in the vase were looking wilted so she came towards it and placed her hands in a cupping motion about the lip of the vase and murmured. The familiar tingle and surge of her power was the same, and the flowers bloomed slowly back into colour and lifted their tired stems up proudly again.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw the orderly shuffle a little uncomfortably on his chair, but there was a roaring in her ears...

_They say you can't grow flowers here, but I can. I can grow them._

_Here in my private little Idaho, somehow they have always had no trouble blooming at my touch. I carefully shape them, delicate jewels of the earth sprouting between fingertips. Twice though, they have been disturbed by men who changed me and my life. Once by Zack, crashing down and opening up my world for me. Once by Cloud, who gave me the key to the cage Shinra made for me, and let me fly free no matter what dangers awaited me._

_I love flowers._

_They're so fragile, easy to destroy – but they struggle for life, they struggle for something most people take for granted. I love their determination to survive; it's something I choose to emulate every day. I am a flower, in my own way..._

"There, as good as new," she smiled, shaking off the echoing roar so it faded. These memories had strange times to pick up and grab at her. She let her hands drop down and studied the blooms, mind filling with other thoughts, memories spilling over each other with a forceful desire to be the next she held up and cherished for a moment or more. "Sorry, "she shook her head again, "It's been a hard time for me lately."

Aerith left the flowers and came back to stand at the window with the girl, looking up at the sky, "It's so pretty, I haven't seen a sunset like this in a long time. I lived in Midgar most of my life; I saw the plates of the sectors if I looked up. On the rare times I visited the upper plates, I would see a sky drowned in pollution. It's only out here you see clouds and stars..."

"You are the Ancient," the girl whispered. Her accent was that of Wutai.

Surprised, Aerith looked again at the girl, "Yes, I am."

"You should run away," the face of the girl turned, looking at her. The left side of the face that was hidden suddenly came into view. It was horrifically scarred and burned. The left arm was in a sling, hand loosely clasped about something. It took Aerith a moment to realise that it was a chunk of coal.

"Huh," she frowned, peering down at it, "Why...?"

_Coal?_

"He purged me, of my blood. He said it was filthy. He said you would come. Flee," the girl's voice was unemotional, "Run. I will take this to the stars so he cannot have it... run, Honoured Daughter... run..."

_...what could she be thinking o-_

The hand with the cloth gagged her effectively and she tried yanking free, but instead fell into oblivion with the thoughts of coal and black rocks swirling down after her with the tangy aftertaste of chloroform.

_

* * *

_

The headaches were making clear thought almost impossible.

_The legs would not obey correctly; they often tripped up and left her sprawled in the dirt. She lay sometimes, listening to nothing at all and then hearing the blood rush back to her brain in protest, the dull thudding of her heart on her ribs in a pained staccato. _

_She would get up and move because if she stayed too long the pain was unbearable._

_The figure in a cloak lurched through bones of buildings like a ghost, clutching at her head and sometimes at her chest. When the night fell, she took to squatting in hovels she built of forgotten debris and she would dig hands beneath her robes and haul out her treasure, eyeing it greedily._

_The sight of it made her sick to her stomach, fingers stained with blood. She couldn't recall how much blood she had shed on the way through._

_There had been checkpoint soldiers, animals, monsters, and the faint acrid tang of 'her' blood. It still clung underneath her fingernails and to her clothes. She tried to ignore this as best she could, but the scent caught her every now and then and the headaches would return a blinding pain that sent her back to the dirt._

_She began to curse the very sky, and when it rained, stood out in it, drinking in nature and coughing out her disease._

_Her precious treasure, she carried it with her, deeper into the arrested heart that was the dead city of Midgar, deep into the intestinal catacombs and down deeper to the very split of the world where the true lifeblood oozed and began her preparation._

_And inside her broken mind the frail voice of the girl beat on the thick walls of glass, unheard._

* * *

Cloud checked his wristwatch, and then looked at Cid who merely shrugged.

Cid had in advance, and rather craftily, left his current packet of 'smokes' back at the buggy, citing that if he did that, then Aerith couldn't rob him of his favourite past-time as she already ran his other bad habits from town with an iron fist. They slouched outside the clinic, looking somewhat bored. Cid was comfortably sprawled on a bench as Cloud paced up and down the sidewalk by the payphones, shoulders hunched.

"This is kind of cutting it a little close," he muttered. "I wonder what's so important in there."

Cid blew out air, scowling briefly then chuckled, "Hey who knows, maybe she likes being with the crazies."

"Aerith isn't crazy."

"No, but she sure is 'special'."

Cloud shook his head, "Don't let Tifa hear you say that."

"Nah, she knows I don't mean it. Aerith's like a little sister to me; an offbeat kind of kooky little sister, but that connection all the same. She's probably caught up in all that healer bullshit," Cid wafted his hands in little circles, "but I hear you, she sure is taking her time."

"It's not like Aerith to make us worry like this."

"Stop pacing, you're making me look lazy," Cid raises his head from being thrown back and lifted an eyebrow, "come to think of it, after she had one of those memory episodes on Highwind, she was going to tell me something but stopped short. I bet it has to do with this place."

"I wonder," Cloud sighed and paused, leaning against a wall by a payphone, hands rammed into his pockets, "I bet she was looking for something like this."

"Like what?"

"Well, Yuffie starts hearing voices and goes well, a bit mad," Cloud smirked, "A lot mad. What if there are people out there, with a bit of Cetra or a bit of Jenova. What if those two sides are warring. It won't result in full blown Yuffinsanity, but they will hear voices. I imagine thinking they're going insane this will be the first place they check into. Maybe she's looking for someone who can hear the voice of Jenova, but won't try and rip her throat out on sight, you know?"

"...for a blond, that sure was a smart line of thinking."

"Kettle, black?" The mercenary smiled as the pilot huffed and rubbed a hand through his silver-touched hair. "Tifa's likely already thought that one through though."

"Must be nice to be so organised."

"She's always been that way; Tifa's the kind of person who made a schedule for life to run at with a million lists along the way. Graduate high school, check; get a high paid job, check; haircut, check... you know the type?"

"High maintenance," Cid snorted. "Not like Aerith."

"No, not really..."

"Excuse me?"

The two men stopped and looked at the doctor who had just left the front doors of the Ward, tall, close-eyed and with neatly trimmed hair. He wore a casual suit and his briefcase had seen less-full days, with bits of papers poking out and some even in the arms of the doctor. He looked between Cloud and Cid, then offered, "Oh my pardon, I'm Doctor Faben, are you friends of Miss Gainsborough? Oh, of course, I recognise you from Avalanche, my apologies."

Cid sat up and murmured, "Since when were we goddamn celebrities?"

"Uh, yeah," Cloud pulled his hands from his pockets, "I'd offer you a handshake but looks like you're already a little busy there."

"Work never stops," the doctor sighed and smiled, "But yes, are you looking for her?"

"Yeah, we're waiting to meet up with her."

Faben frowned; "Now that makes no sense, I checked the visitor log and it states that Miss Gainsborough checked out two hours ago. You haven't met up with her at all?"

"No," Cloud pushed off the wall, "No we didn't. Are we okay to go check inside?"

"Well," Faben hesitated then shrugged, "Sure, it's not my shift anyway, sign the log and hopefully you find her. I have work that I must be about doing, I'm terribly sorry." He nodded and walked towards his car, getting and after a moment, driving away.

Cid looked at Cloud and wordlessly they both entered the ward. Cloud felt a lump tighten in his throat. The last time he'd been here he had been a patient and Clinic had been little more than a small hospital of tiny wings. He set a brisk pace, sooner he was out of there the better.

As they searched room to room and queried the nurses as they went, he thought back to those hazy times he spent drowning in his memories. It was more than that though; it was the flood of feeling that came with them. He had felt completely inadequate as a person, as a friend. He couldn't ever measure up to the kind of guy that Zack was, and meeting the girl Zack had dated only to fall in love with her too had compounded matters.

Even Tifa had looked up to Zack when he had come back to Nibelheim in shame, hiding his face behind his helmet so she couldn't know he wasn't first class Soldier. He was a grunt.

The nurses were kind and offered up information about her last places seen, and they visited a few rooms. The people seemed so detached and sad, some speaking to thin air softly, others staring at walls or windows or pictures. A few performed routine activities, sometimes with other patients.

After a thorough search of wards and backrooms, they came back to the front door and the visitor log. Curious, Cloud flipped open the book and peered through the names of the visitors to the clinic. There was Aerith's name for admittance in early afternoon. Sure enough, two or so hours ago was her name again...

"Wait a minute," Cid said, looking down at the log, "That's not right."

"What isn't?"

"Are you blind as well as blond, boy? That first one, that's her for sure. But the second one isn't her handwriting at all." Cid prodded the offending lines, "See?"

"...you're right," Cloud frowned, "Are you saying that someone else signed her out?"

"Yeah, but who? I need a smoke dammit all, I always do when I gotta think, lets step outside for a bit of air."

"Alright, sure." Cloud closed the log and followed Cid outside.

The parking in the afternoon had been nothing short of awful so they'd been forced to park the buggy up again by the service entrance for the Clinic Psych Ward, and on approach it was this time Cloud who stopped Cid by grabbing his shoulder. "Wait."

"What the f-"

"You see that car, that one?" He nodded in the direction of a shiny new model, parked by the large bins of refuse. "Familiar?"

"That's the one that the doctor drives, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but didn't we see him drive away?" Cloud pointed, "And that fire door is ajar."

Cid spat, "Shit, and I still ain't got a smoke. Let's do this bullcrap before I decide my addiction beats saving that dame again..."

_

* * *

_

The circles of black span around her head in dizzying waves, bringing bile up to her throat. She tried to grasp them but they passed through her hands, shimmering as inconstant as the stars on a cloudy night.

"_Coal," she said, "Onyx, Jet. None of these are the Black Materia... but..."_

_The girl who held the chunk of coal had said she would take it away. The girl said she was purged of her blood. Was that possible?_

_She wanted to be sick, and fell to her knees, clutching her stomach. "Planet, Planet..." she groaned, "Help me."_

_-It is almost time- it sighed and groaned –It is time for you to choose the new future, a time almost upon us!-_

"_Choose? What choice is there? I don't understand, I don't understand..." she wailed softly, "I don't..."_

_The chunks of rock clattered to the floor around her in a cacophony of noise..._

Her eyes fluttered open, looking at the chains that had dropped to the floor close to her face. There were a set of feet, booted in immaculate leather and a voice that whispered softly.

"She might have the Star in her hands, but Mother will love me more for I rid her of you... I am the one you came to and unlike her, I can do the deed. I couldn't purge her of her fault, Mother did that, you helped her. How did that feel, creating a monster? How does it feel to betray your faith, hmm?"

"...what..." she croaked. Her throat still burned from the chloroform. It felt uncomfortable just to breathe.

"Awake are you? No matter, I injected you with a paralysing drug. You should have little to no motor control. It's amazing what science can create. You should be familiar with the drug..."

"Hojo," she whispered. She was ashamed of the tears that sprang to her eyes.

"A brilliant man, a truly visionary mind," the toe in her side was an insult, prodding her gently, "See? Complete muscle relaxation."

The floor was as cold as one of the metal tables had been. She swallowed her fear desperately. What was she doing blubbering away like a little girl? She had already died once; she had faced Sephiroth and by sheer force of will, won. She had beaten the Meteor back; she had survived impossible odds and came out stronger each time.

But the mere hint that she was back in the clutches of Hojo was enough to curl her heart into a shrivelled nothing inside her.

"No..."

"Oh you don't get much of a say in this matter. Oh, my pardon," she felt herself being lifted, there were no hands beneath her to support her, a magical intrusion upon her person no doubt – and then deposited on a warmer surface, faintly soft; a hospital bed. Her face lolled to one side, staring at a wall.

"Who... who..."

"I'm definitely not Lady Kisaragi, if you're asking," the man chuckled, and a hand sternly took hold of her chin to turn her head. It had to be the orderly. Instead it was the face of Doctor Faben who looked down at her amused. "Oh, you expected my aide to be the one? Because he couldn't look at you in the eye? Marvellous stuff, materia applications in medical science. You can create all manners of serums if you're adept at using materia, like say, manipulation."

"That's awful!"

"Yes, terrible, bad Faben, such a bad little boy," he chuckled, and waggled a finger at her; "Do you think that'd honestly stop me?"

"You're the other Jenova, the other strong one..."

"Yes, I am. I disturbed the Black Materia, but it was stolen from me a few days ago by Kisaragi. It's most vexing, I was about to follow her, but then you fell in my lap. Mother wants your death so terribly, how could I not please her?"

"I do not fear Death," she said truthfully.

"No, that is unfortunately true... and I doubt physical pain is something a Cetra like you can block out by now, hmm? But, emotional pain... fear for others..." He turned her face, so she could see the other side of her and the two people lay unconscious on the trolleys. "They came snooping around after you, even despite my attempts at misdirection. What a troublesome bunch you all are."

"Cloud, Cid," she tried to yell, and then coughed as Faben chopped her smartly in the throat.

"Now, enough out of you my petal. Tell me, you ever wonder what a dissection on a live human looks like?" His smile wasn't warm anymore, and she stared at him in terror, head lolling back to stare at Cid's snoring form and Cloud's inert one but for his breathing, soft.

_I have to do something..._

Faben's back was to her as he shuffled his medical equipment about. She stared at his back, then the faces of his unconscious victims, her friends. She tried to clench her vocal box to cry out Tifa's name, but the chop had seen fit to cut her ability to talk down to a whisper.

_Is this where it all ends?_

_Tifa won't come for me now... she can't hear my voice, and my heart is disconnected, there is no hope. I can't rely on her. What am I doing... what am I doing? I can't rely on anyone, when am I going to fully stand up and realise my own fate. I am a strong person, I am a flower._

_I struggle. I live on. I survive._

_That is my way, against any odds; I can make it if I just try hard enough._

_I can do anything I set my mind to._

_Think Aerith, think._

She glanced around madly, searching for some way out of it.

It seemed seconds were stretching into horror as Faben began to remove the shirt of Cid, exposing a surprisingly hair-free chest with a hint of a beer belly. His clever fingers moved to pick up a scalpel. Warm lips brushed her ear, and if she hadn't already been paralysed by drugs or her voice shocked into submission, she would have screamed.

Faben's fingertips were poised just above scooping up the knife. The shirt was caught in mid-fall to the floor, dragging down the goggles that it had caught in its fall from the side of the bed. She tried to look from the corner of her eyes, terrified.

"Aerith," Arkilles whispered, "You asked for your memories to be returned to you. Instead, we have gifted you with something beyond your original wish."

Another voice joined; it was yet another man in a dark purple robe, hooded and appearing next to the doorway where the exit light flashed gently, bathing him in alternate green and white. "We have given you the Echo of Ages."

A third, an elderly woman dressed in orange and gold with a large facial mask feathered, that spoke of her medical profession in the earliest reaches of Cetra society, "It grants the power not only to reach back in time, but forward too. You already possessed some ability to this effect... now grasp it with both hands."

Another male voice, somewhere by her feet where she could not see, "You must choose, will you take up the path of the Champion of this world, or will you seek only yourself?"

The fifth and final was a woman in a green robe, hood lined in white who appeared in a soft fading motion by Faben's back, "Aerith... can you save what you dreamed of, or is this too much?"

"..." She frowned, "If I pick this choice... nothing will go back to how it was. I will change, forever."

The woman in green nodded, "Yes, Aerith. You will; but take comfort in knowing all things must change and transcend."

"And Tifa?"

"If her love for you is true, then it will endure, no matter what."

Aerith closed her eyes and when she opened them, the figures had gone, leaving her back in the room where Faben was studying the keen edge of the scalpel in the strip lighting overhead.

_If what they said is true, they haven't really diminished me, only added to me..._

She focused on her muscles, on moving her natural energy through them. A sweat sprang to her skin, her energy forcing the toxin from her cells to the surface where it beaded with sweat and rolled off. Alert suddenly, she sat upright and swung her legs off the edge of the bed.

Faben turned, scalpel flashing as she activated this new power, tapping deep inside herself and seeking this new well of energy. It sat there, a faint greenish glow alongside her natural white one. She saw what she could only describe as a future echo. There was a shadow of an arm coming at her, and another from another angle.

Bemused and dismayed, she saw the magically enhanced ripples moving through this enhanced time-state towards her and ducked to the side, rolling over the bed. Faben followed her with an angry shout, lashing out with his power as she avoided blow after blow, often using her own energy to deflect his attacks with shields springing up at her command, keeping his attention focused on her and away from Cloud and Cid.

It was there, a moment of weakness, when she saw her chance.

Pure instinct drove her, needled by terror. She didn't even consider it a choice. She lurched forward, snatched up a scalpel and as he was wide open, drove it deep into his throat with a scream of fear. He stared at her, those too-close eyes filled with fear and shock. He dropped his scalpel and clutched at her, fingers digging into her shoulders. Their eyes were so close together, his breath rattled foamy on her cheek. She pulled back as his strength gave away and he collapsed to the floor twitching.

She was drenched in blood, her heart pounded.

"What was... what was that power?" She murmured, turning to use her own healing energy on Cid, then Cloud, rousing them to the point of waking, then sitting down in the puddle of blood by Faben's dead body, "...what am I becoming?"

Cloud sat up only a few moments later, hand to his head, "Ugh what hit me?" He looked across at Cid's bare stomach, "Ugh..." and then down at Aerith sat in the blood, staring at her hands, scalpel still in the left one, "Aerith? Are you alright? Aerith?" He jumped down and came to her side.

She didn't hear him, or see him. She stared at the blood as Arkilles whispered in her ear, "...and so the choice is made."

_

* * *

_

She will be coming for me soon.

_I will hide out underground; there is no moon there, no sound of the air or the stars. Only the lungs of an asthmatic world struggling to breathe... I feed my precious the tears I have stolen from countless lives, and tell Mother it will be soon._

_Soon?_

_So come save me soon Aerith..._

_...save me, or destroy what I have become..._

_Please._


	17. Part Seventeen: Rapture

**:: Heart Less Love ::**

"Man wants to live, but it is useless to hope that this desire will dictate all his actions."  
- Albert Camus

**Part Seventeen: Rapture**

_The world is such a beautiful place._

_Every moment I am alive, I thank whatever forces have brought me here. I thank Gods and spirits for blessing me with a life filled with both sorrow and joy, that I might learn from it, that I might transcend it. Each day, I look towards the dawn with renewed senses of courage, hope and strength. I seek out those challenges others would find daunting, I crest the waves of adversity and rise from the crashing water, stronger and transformed every time; not every transformation visible to the eye, even the smallest and most subtle mutation is one I have earned._

_Today, I am delighted and content. Tomorrow, who can say if I will feel the same, but that's part of the excitement and drama of life. Tomorrow I could be as high as the stratosphere and continuing to climb higher and higher, to touch the stars and dance across the clouds where angels rest._

_And this world where it all begins and ends, where life blooms and fades, where laughter rings and echoes to a lonely wolf call across uncaring rifts of cliffs and surging seas; this world is my home, and my time walking it has been well spent. And so, that makes it the most beautiful place I have ever known._

_So this time... maybe this time, I can do something more...  
_

* * *

Tifa's hands were gentle as they wiped off the stains of red.

Her lover and best friend sat on the edge of a trolley in the San of the airship, staring out of one of the portholes with a far-away expression in her green eyes. Tifa said little as she traced the soft, damp cloth through the folds of skin, picking up the dregs of rusty blood and cleaning Aerith as best she could along the way. The beautiful outfit Aerith had chosen for the day had been burned in the lower engine decks, an act that Tifa had sent Vincent to do, unable to watch even the clothes that had been stained red.

Aerith had been as docile as a lamb after Cloud and Cid had brought her along from the hospital. The local authority had been involved rather heavily in the investigation that had hampered their progress for two days, and only just now saw them cruising along at a gentle speed over the southern eastern continent.

"Tifa," Aerith said, still staring out of the window, "I haven't once said, I am sorry, have I?"

Tifa looked up at the gentle woman, her soft eyes and pursed lips and tears that glistened only faintly on velvet skin, kissed by the sunshine. The halo of gold surrounding her was a trick of the light, as evening drew on, and she could only barely distinguish the sound of one of Aerith's feet tapping a nervous staccato on the trolley over the hum of the airship engines. She thought for a long moment, still carefully cleaning the blood from her lovers' arms.

"No, I suppose not."

Aerith smiled a little, a touch sadly, "Well I am. And now, things have changed further than ever. I have changed."

"People tend to do that, Cetra or Human." Tifa put down her washrag and turned, to pick up the pale pink and red dress, long sleeved with an a-line set to the skirt. "It is only natural, stagnation kills everything."

"I killed a man."

It hung there between them, awkward and loud, and Tifa gripped the material in her hands briefly, digging nails to her palms even through the simple layers of cotton. Aerith however, just sighed and slipped from the trolley to her feet, and began removing the surgical gown so she could dress.

_What do I say to her? What do I do?_

Tifa cleared her throat and handed the dress to the nude and seemingly unfazed Aerith, briefly noting with a wandering eye how chilly the air was to the ancient. "I have killed too."

"I am not you, I don't understand how to cope with this," Aerith shrugged herself into the dress, voice muffled, "I don't know if I'm meant to cope with it at all. I feel numb. Killing someone else, it's as if I sheared off part of my soul as I did it," her head emerged from the neckline, "as if they gripped it and dragged it away with them. I don't destroy, I create, I heal..."

Tifa watched as Aerith's hands began to tremble, settling the skirt that came to mid-calf and then attempting to pull her hair free of the dress. Unable to bear it any longer, she stepped up close and threaded her fingers into the golden-brown strands and helped with a tender motion, moving to press her cheek against Aerith's as she did so, grazing her lips along the line of her cheekbone. "It doesn't matter to me, what you've done; you're Aerith, my Aerith. It doesn't matter at all. If you must cry, cry. If you must be angry, be so. But don't hold it inside, I made that mistake and it nearly killed me. I was afraid too, once upon a time, but this fairy tale is different, things are different. Like you said, we have changed not only you but me too; but that doesn't mean we can't build more dreams on those new directions together."

"Tifa, why do you always know the right things to say," the green eyes looking up at her were almost overwhelmed with tears.

"I speak from the heart," she replied truthfully.

"A heart locked up," Aerith said softly, the distance between them making her eyelashes almost brush Tifa's nose tip.

"No," Tifa disagreed, "Not now. I have nothing left to hide from you." Desperation, perhaps irritation tinged her voice, "you're the only mystery left in my life, Aer'. You speak in riddles sometimes, you stare into space and your lips move without sound, you wake in the dead of night to look up stars and cry when only silence prevails. You laugh, and yet how can you, with what has been behind you in your past? You look to a future only you can clearly see as a blueprint, but you neglect to show us directions, assuming we will follow right behind you, and perhaps it is to our discredit that we blindly do so. You love without discrimination, you forgive without a second thought and you accept as easily as the wind through a willow tree, bending so you never break."

"Am I being scolded or complimented," the Cetra couldn't help but perk a faint smile.

"A bit of both."

"Am I really such a closed book to you?"

"More like an open book in a language I'm barely beginning to understand." Tifa sifted her fingers through the brown strands, adding gently, "and however much you won't want to hear this, it'll only get harder from now on. There's going to be more obstacles in our path."

"She wasn't at Mideel," Aerith looked down.

"No," Tifa kissed the brown strands, and then folded the shorter girl close tightly to her chest, "That leaves only one place."

Aerith leaned in, willing as much comfort as she could, anything to try and stem her endless shaking. There was another ugly truth hiding out around the corner of her eyes, she just couldn't precisely pin it down. Instead she whispered, with lips that trembled as much as her hands, "Midgar."

Tifa nodded, "...Everything begins and ends there."

Aerith suddenly changed the subject, making Tifa blink somewhat uncertainly and lean back a way so she could peer down at the slight woman enfolded close, "What I did back there..." there was a faint reproachful smile, "Don't worry, I'll try not to fall headfirst into maudlin discussion! But... my magic..."

"Something happened?"

"I think I've changed, or evolved, magically. You know how I've always had the ability to freeze monsters, or even encourage you guys when you were fighting?"

Tifa nodded; of course she remembered, the first time a wolf had come leaping for her throat and the way her own scream had chilled her own blood. She had been frozen to the spot, unable to force her muscles to move. It was, at the time, looking at death coming for her. They had only been a little way outside of Kalm at the time, starting their great trek onward to the chocobo farm and the swamplands where they would find the giant swamp snake and the trail of Sephiroth.

As she had screamed, the wolf has seemed to slow down inch by inch until it was frozen there, held from the ground and motion as if by invisible hands. She had cast her eyes about, thinking maybe this was all some dream she was having, only to see Aerith off to one side, hands outstretched and her skin marked with faint sweat. But her green eyes shone with triumph, her usually sweet mouth pressed into a line of concentration, and that was when Tifa knew that it was Aerith's power that was holding the wolf at bay and had saved her again.

"I remember it very clearly, a little too much," Tifa chuckled. "You looked so smug."

"Smug?" Aerith couldn't help but smile a little, "Maybe. But, when I was in that room, when I was held down and I didn't think I could do anything... it was as it everything had slowed down, then froze. Everything, not just one enemy. I moved outside of that moment and I had the time I needed to get free. And after that, it was if I was still moving faster, my thoughts and actions were operating at a higher level than you or I or anyone is used to. I think I could do it again, if I tried..." Her eyes shone a touch, "I think my magic is evolving and what it is becoming... it scares me, it's not as clear cut as healing magic... there's a million and more applications for time based magic."

"Aerith, how many magical schools did the Cetra have?"

She shrugged helplessly, "As many as there are types of Materia, is all I can guess."

"What does Materia have to do with it?"

"Well... Hojo used to say, 'Materia is the bridge that can connect humans with the knowledge and the wisdom of the Ancients, it's that interaction that produces powers. The more evolved the communication between the well of knowledge and the user is via the materia, or rather, the more evolved the skill is, the greater the magical effect produced.' I think it's like that."

"Hmm," Tifa fought hard to repress a shudder. She remembered Sephiroth saying similar things when they had found that natural materia vein and the mako fountain, in the caves high on the Nibelheim Mountains.

"The different types of materia are just ways to interact with those various wells of knowledge the Cetra had. Of course, being Cetra myself, I've never needed a curative materia in order to access healing... and now I don't need a materia that deals with Time magic either." Aerith smiled, "I feel scared and excited. More scared, I think, because I don't know where this will take me."

Tifa shook her head, and tightened her hold, "No, no one knows. Either way, it's going to take us a few hours to get to Edge and then..."

"Midgar," Aerith breathed, her voice hardened, "and Yuffie... and the black materia."

The dark-haired warrior said nothing now, just staring thoughtfully at the golden brown hair of the ancient that snuggled into her, relaxing tense, thin muscles. Inwardly, she groped and wrestled, searching for solutions to all the problems that kept cropping up with a despair she couldn't voice.

_Tick. Tick. Tick._

* * *

_I watched from the bow of the ship, looking down from the metal planking and rails that penned me in as the crew, namely the world famous Avalanche met with the local government who had come forth to meet them. As luck had have it, ShinRa had also been in the area, working out new deals, the kind of 'proto' energy source that Reeve was working on._

_I remember looking at Rufus across the crowd and from above the heads of those who had gathered and were talking. He took his time about it, but I knew his eyes would eventually come to meet mine and when they did, the flash of a sometime friendship resided there, woken from a long slumber and still fresh, still good to go._

_He parted ways from the government as they set up inside the local mayoral offices to discuss the plans and plots with Tifa and Cloud, to get on the phone to the Cosmo Canyon, to Corel and to Wutai; to all the major nerve centres of the known world that weren't directly connected on this continent. He came to where I stood like a pallid wraith by the metal railings, and in his impeccable cream suit edged with a soft green faintly floral embroidery, the black shirt with the cream necktie and his dark auburn hair swept back from a noble, handsome face; it was there I felt his hand cover mine._

_It was as if years had fallen away from between us with this one gesture._

_I was the lonely, terrified girl that hid beneath his father's desk from the rampage of Hojo, seeking out my blood and genetics. His was the tentative hand that crept with gentle fingers towards my hands, that dried my tears and offered me shyly sweets he'd been given as a way of 'keeping him quiet' when his father was busy with work, always too busy to pay attention to his kind, growing son._

_I hardened my jaw, but my hand closed reflexively on his fingers._

_This was one of those things I found difficult to put into words; words that Tifa, Cloud or Cid could understand._

_To me, Rufus ShinRa was as much an intimate detail of my life as the Turks, as Hojo, as Zack..._

"_You came," I said, my voice wavering uncertainly._

_Rufus' fingers tightened more, until he was gripping me hard. He held me fast to that place, this special series of moments I could always look back on and draw a kind of odd spiritual strength from. "I wasn't able to be a protector or hero for you the last time," he apologised, as from the blue._

_I looked up at him, his eyes were harder, older but inside those depths I saw kindness, love and friendship. I saw the young man he had been forced to hide from the world, and I reached out for him. I reached out for my Rufus._

"_Besides," he added softly, "Isn't it me who should be saying the same to you, Aerith? You came, even though you were about to break."_

_I felt the tears welling up, as he leaned in closer, "Rufus..."_

"_I think that's a good sign."_

_I wanted to laugh at the irony of his words, but a bubble of tears was all that came out, a shameful river of blubbering as I collapsed into his waiting arms. I don't know what I really wanted to say, but when I found enough strength to push away, I caught sight of Tseng._

_He was much older now, his hair had been shorn short in a style that closely resembled a male bob-cut, his painted dot remained though and a scar over his left temple was a recent addition. His dark eyes were wiser, and his mouth lined. I found myself looking at a man grown thin with worries, still neatly folded into an immaculate tailored black suit. "Tseng."_

"_Aerith," he replied, "You're going to run off and do something dangerous again, aren't you?"_

_I pouted a touch, "Maybe... maybe."_

"_I thought, well..." he crossed the distance to me, pulling forth a single letter that looked years and years old, worn and well cared for despite the battering the outer envelope had taken. "I kept this for you."_

"_For me?"_

_I took the letter, turning it over as Tseng continued, "Your last letter, to Zack. I have others, ones that never made it after he was placed into the scientific programme Hojo was running at Nibelheim. I... I wanted to... apologise. For everything, for Zack, for hurting you..."_

"_Tseng," my voice caught, "I never once blamed you."_

"_I know and that makes it all harder to bear. A little blame now and then, it could help us lesser mortals along," his smile was deprecating and crooked. The starlight gave everything, including his face a luminous hard edge._

"_I have missed you, both of you," I whispered._

_Rufus came to stand close by and bent his head a little, whispering, "Don't go alone this time then. Don't race off without us all. You're planning it; I saw the same look in your eyes so many times, so defiant and proud. Wait for us, we're almost there too, everyone, even that blond idiot."_

"_Even Cloud?" I said, and laughed softly, but my heart was laced with doubt and sudden nervousness. Maybe, IF I could get away... if I could..._

_His words drowned out the thoughts, as it seemed Avalanche had negotiated the talks successfully and were boarding back on ship. I regretfully let Rufus' hand slip from mine, the warmth of my sometime-shadow Tseng fading from somewhere next to me. I watched them leave, my eyes roving the crowd as people had gathered to riotously see off the most famous people in the world: On another life or death mission, for the will of the Planet and all her peoples._

_I crumpled my letter close, turning my eyes to the stars, and trying to find that same determination within me, cold like steel, once more._

* * *

Cloud booked in the last of the preparations at the restaurant in Kalm, where they had all elected to spend the night before going into the heart of Midgar. His eyes regretfully roved over the credit card that he turned over in his calloused fingers. "I once had money..." he threw a doleful look in Tifa's direction.

She sniffed, loudly but not without a hint of a smile, "Money means little, Mr Strife! Live for the moment, I say!"

"You never used to. I think you went to the toilet and lists came out. Lists and forms and accounts..."

"...Okay well maybe once upon a time, Tifa _Lackhart_," Tifa smirked a little and he blushed hard _(He didn't expect her to remember that unkind childhood insult)_ "Was a bit anally retentive."

"A bit?"

"A whole lot, but those lists also helped to keep me calm and organised when other people would panic. I had a lot of problems as a kid, but, most kids do. You're not entirely without blame in that department."

"Oh don't I know it," he sighed and tucked the credit card back into his wallet, "Feels empty in there..."

"We can earn more back. But, think of it like this... it's a little like going in reverse."

Cloud looked up at her as they stepped into the street outside, the morning sun overhead and birds singing. People milled about, it was market day in the town square and preparations were in full swing for the upcoming Meteor Day.

"Thinking about it more, it's a repetition and reverse." Cloud followed her towards the Inn, past chocobos that cooed softly at them as they passed, "We're getting close to Meteor Day. One story came to a powerful culmination on this day years ago. In another sense, we're retracing our steps back, to Midgar, even staying here. Events are being mirrored, not always in order or in sense."

Tifa opened the Inn front door to the jangling of a bell, "God I hope another meteor doesn't drop on us this time..."

* * *

Aeris turned the fluted glass about in her hands, then look across the round table at the faces of her friends, those few that could be gathered there with them. It was that strange feeling again, the night before all things would crash into motion. Tifa wore a lovely dark red skirt with a crème coloured blouse and her hair was worn up in a dark red, glittering band, the fringe controlled by a set of hairclips also in a glittering red.

Next to her, Cloud wore a dark blue shirt and black trousers and a pair of open toed sandals, so he could wriggle his toes in pleasant comfort. He said years of wearing hard boots made the sensation of having his toes out in the open a wonderful one that he didn't often get to relish. To his right was Vincent, the man wore his usual dark clothing – a black mandarin collared shirt, black trousers and a black neck scarf.

At Tifa's left lounged Cid. Cid was, as ever and thankfully, ruffled, rumpled and thoroughly unwilling to make the effort. His shirt bore a telltale hint of engine grease at the left hip. His jeans were faded, especially at the knees, and stitched multiple times in an effort to keep them from seeing the garbage heap. He smoked with an ashtray sitting next to his plate.

They had finished eating and were in the process of toasting. Tifa smiled at her from over the table. Aerith had chosen a green dress today, with elbow length sleeves, a ruffled collar and a skirt that hung to the floor but was split just so, showing the faint hint of a white underskirt. In a dim part of her mind she thought she looked a little like an upside down lily flower. She wasn't sure she liked her dress, but Tifa had said she looked lovely in it. Anything for her, Aerith reasoned, throwing back the smile.

"Another ending," Cid growled, tossing back another whisky. He had declined the expensive champagne that Cloud had been bullied into purchasing by Tifa.

"To another ending," they all echoed. Aerith didn't raise her voice much over a whisper.

She wasn't so sure it was going to be as black and white as Cid was hoping for.

"And then, thank you to Cloud for buying this dinner out, so generously." Tifa grinned.

Vincent added, "Very philanthropic."

Cloud gave them all dark looks and massaged a hand over his trouser pocket, acquiring an injured expression, "My poor bank balance, and look at how quickly it was scoffed up!"

"Cloud, please," Tifa snorted, "You ate a whole rack of ribs by yourself."

"I want to get MY money's worth." He grinned back at her, cheekily and picked up his glass, "Besides, it's a special night, all of us together like this."

"Who knows when we'll next have this chance," the ex-Turk leaned back, and then stood up. "This being said, I have enjoyed our time together."

"You're going somewhere," Cloud looked up.

He nodded, pushing his seat back into the table smoothly, "I have a lot of things to think over, things that I need to sort in my own mind before we approach Midgar tomorrow. I'll see you all in the morning." Vincent turned and walked away, out of the restaurant's front door, all lit with firefly lights around the archway.

Cid peered after him, and then stubbed out his cigar. "Probably off to go drink him some blood, damned Vampire." But his usual cursing seemed hollow, and he shook his blond and grey haired head. "I don't know, maybe he's got the right of it. It's a night where we all should be talking to loved ones, thinking the future over, preparing ourselves. It's a war out there."

"Remember, we did this twice before," Cloud sighed.

"The one at the northern crater was the worst," Tifa's eyes glazed a little in memory, "When we all went our separate ways, hunting out our reasons to continue fighting. We all visited our homes and loved ones..."

The blond Soldier's face was pained, "Except for us."

She nodded her agreement, "Yes, except for us."

"But," Aerith suddenly said, her voice cracking slightly. She cleared her throat and continued, "But, you had each other."

"We had our memories together, the old Nibelheim." Tifa looked at Cloud, "We had years of lies and a new world of truth opened up before us."

"We had the people we had become to talk things over between." Cloud looked at Aerith, "and we had our pain."

"I'm sorry," she said without thinking, looking between Cloud and Tifa, "I didn't mean... I..."

"Well, that's as maybe, but tonight I think I'm gonna take Spike here and take him to the closest bar so he can learn the fine art of falling into a gutter and waking up with the world's biggest headache." Cid grinned as he stood up, reaching over to grab Cloud by the back of his shirt and hauling him to his feet, however unwilling.

"Hey!"

"C'mon, I'm sure they have things to discuss. I ain't ever been the type to be subtle or sweet, but I get the feeling we need to go elsewhere. Tifa," Cid inclined his head, then said in a much softer tone, "sweet little Aerith."

"Cid," she said warmly, as Tifa laughed.

"Aw come on!"

Soon enough, it was the two of them again, and Tifa stood up gracefully, coming around the table to where Aerith was. She held out a slim, faintly scarred hand. Aerith looked up the length of that lovely arm, to the beautiful face of her determined, wilful lover.

"It's a beautiful night out, let's go look at the stars together."

"Okay," she took the hand.

It took them perhaps ten minutes to reach the town outskirts, and another ten to be far enough away from the city that the artificial lights didn't bleed into the sky, masking the brilliant night. They stood, hand in hand in the long tickling grass, as Aerith's eyes drank in the night, alive and illuminated with stars. Tifa kept leading her gently, to a small crest, where there already was a log, obviously dragged out and pre-laden with a gingham checked blanket for them to sit on.

Aerith had always secretly suspected Tifa of being a deep romantic soul.

Together they sat down, and looked towards the heavens, breathtaking with the amount of stars overhead. She took in the air, the cloudless sky, the long grass that smelled sweetly of summer and flowers. Then she turned her head to the side to look at Tifa, who was still staring upwards, a faint, relaxed smile in place.

"A long, long time ago," Tifa said in a voice that promised to tell a story, "I was a young girl, filled with dreams, as most young girls are prone to. I dreamed of a world where my mother was alive and my father wasn't so bittersweet about the whole affair. I would meet a nice guy, I'd settle down. Maybe I would have taken up being a pianist; maybe I would have opened my own dojo like my martial arts master. But beyond all of this, all I really wanted to do was to fall in love and be rescued by a hero, like the damsels in those silly fairy tales I read far too many of.

"But as time went on, I realised that I'd have to take steps to get my fairy tale ending. So I forced Cloud into a promise, that if I was ever in trouble, that if I ever needed saving, he would show up and pull me out of the flames before I could burn. It wasn't a perfect promise; Cloud eventually left to join Soldier, failed and was put into the horrific experiments that Hojo conducted on human beings. I, in time, became a lot more self reliant. I didn't need Cloud to save me; I didn't need someone to be the hand held out to me.

"At least, not in the way I could see. After Sephiroth's madness destroyed our small mountain town, I woke to a world filled with pain. Not just physical pain," Tifa touched her chest sadly, "Though I will carry those scars forever. But a world where my emotional pain was almost suffocating, all I wanted was revenge and it drove me halfway across the world, seeking out other wounded souls like myself. I wanted to see ShinRa burn, the way I had watched our village burn. I wanted them to suffer and damn the world if I wouldn't see it through.

"I joined the mercenary group you know as Avalanche; we weren't much at time though, a few ragtag people with bits and pieces of specialised knowledge. I knew my place in that organisation. I was the person who operated within the law, who gave them a hideaway to come to, who healed their wounds of heart and mind and took care of them. Every day that they went out, my heart ached to go with them, to be out there. I wanted to help. In time, I found Cloud, sick and alone at the train station. He barely knew his own name, my name... he didn't even act like the Cloud I knew and spoke of events he should have absolutely no knowledge of."

Tifa lowered her hand from massaging her scar, and looked up at the stars again, eyes filling with tears, "What I hadn't realised was that Cloud had been there, as a regular grunt. He'd done all he could to keep me from harm's way, out of the fire. I didn't remember him, not right away, but how could I have forgotten? Then, when Cloud joined with us, and once we'd managed to wring some semblance of sanity out of his mako soaked and confused mind; I made the decision to go along with his little lies. I figured it would be, for the moment at least, kinder to him. Events began to move faster, like we were being pulled inexorably towards something.

"And that something was you." Tifa looked at her now and Aerith couldn't help but blush. "But who were you, to come out of nowhere with the skills I couldn't ever have? I grudgingly respected you at first, but before I even knew it, I was feeling for you things I had wanted in a fairy tale. Real love, not a childish infatuation with promises and dreams; and I wanted you to love me too. When you met me, Aerith, you didn't just save Cloud, you didn't protect Barrett with your loving acceptance in Corel, you didn't just help Red put to rest the painful ghosts of his past and open up a new path for him to walk; you reached out your hand to everyone... and I reached back. So you know, you pulled me out of the flames I'd been burning in; the doubt, the hatred, the despair. I thought I'd forgotten how to actually feel behind this shell I hid myself behind.

"I loved you, so much and to my surprise, it continued and still continues to grow each day. So, I brought you here, to say to you; no matter where we go, or what we do, as long as we are together, I will always fight for you. I will always love you. I will always be by your side." Tifa slid off the log, to her knee. Her hands were busy, fumbling with something, and then they were outstretched. A small velvet box was held in them, with a ring. It was platinum, with two emeralds and a single, pristine diamond. Aerith didn't need to have her extraordinary ability to read people to know that Tifa had chosen this ring specifically because of the connotations in the stone placement: two emeralds for Aerith's green eyes, a diamond for the holy materia. "Marry me, Aerith Gainsborough, and let's have a fairy tale ending."

"Yes," she breathed, the ring going onto her finger, "Always, Tifa, always!"

_And for now, she can be happy._

As Tifa kissed her, embracing her tightly with tears of joy in her eyes, Aerith held back, but with a different sort of fervour. She held tighter, because she knew exactly what she was going to do again.

She was going to break Tifa's heart.

_Things have certain symmetry about them, and if this is true, and this night is like the other then there is only one thing I can do. I'm so sorry Tifa, I love you, but you can grow to hate me._

* * *

It was several hours before dawn.

She moved from the bed in the near total darkness, Kalm was silent outside but for the sparse drunks returning home. Her partner lay sleeping soundly in bed, mouth a little open and arm thrown up over her head in repose. Her skin reflected the moonlight and the glitter of lanterns hung beyond their inn window. Her hair was left loose on the pillows, dark with the night. She cast an eye over the form of her sleeping lover, trying to fix it into her mind.

Without much care for the amount of noise she was making, she turned around and then knelt, groping underneath their bed until she found her backpack and drew it out. She was dressed for the day, in hard wearing clothes. With a quick and determined eye she checked over the materia she had chosen to take with her.

"It won't be easy," she said softly.

Putting the backpack on her shoulder, she cast one final look into the room, then began to walk down the corridor, not worrying too much over waking Cloud or Cid up; they had torn the town up with drinking and passed out almost as soon as they had come home. She'd been thoughtful enough to leave letters for each of them, explaining certain things. One of them was a letter that could be considered more like a will.

_After all, I don't expect to come out of this alive. Alive just doesn't happen where Jenova is concerned._

She began her long journey out of the inn front door and continued it out of the town, with an even pace. After about fifteen minutes of walking, she turned and pulled a dark cloak out of her pack; it was hooded and would keep some of the chill of the night off her skin. As she was putting it on, fingers that were a little cold fumbling with the ties about the neck, she froze.

"Going somewhere?" Vincent said.

She swore under her breath; she'd forgotten about Vincent. It was easy enough to do, the man was such a shadow. She turned to face him. He was stood like she was, in the long grass, in the same dark suit he'd worn to their dinner party that evening. There was no real point to lying, so she smiled sweetly, "I figure it'd be the only way."

"You're doing this to protect her, and us, aren't you?"

"Sometimes you have to roll the dice," She lowered her eyes, "I can't just wait."

"What do you want me to tell them?"

Her heart fluttered; he wasn't going to stop her? "Vincent-" she began.

He held up a hand, "I won't stop you. You have your reasons for doing this. I have thought a lot about things this evening. I have found troubling things, lying in my heart. I shouldn't feel these things but I do. I, too, wish to join with you and rush to the heart of Midgar, to the Deepground, to where Yuffie is so that I might save her. I have wondered for a while about these feelings, were they the worries of an older brother, as I have long striven to maintain with her? No. I have watched her grow, mature into a woman. My feelings are those of a man to a woman."

"Oh," she said in some surprise, then smiled, "I see. Well then, I will find her and wait for you to come and save her."

"Like she did for you?"

"Of course, every girl needs a hero. Tell them I used the sleepel materia so I could make my getaway. Say I overpowered you, I wouldn't mind if you lied; I think we'd be fairly matched given my urgency. If you could, keep her safe, until I come back."

"Will you come back or will we find the ghost of _you,_ this time?"

Tifa just smiled, and with a wave of her hand, resumed her walk towards Midgar through the long flowing grass, backpack on her shoulder and determination screwed up as tightly as she could manage.

* * *

_...tick...tick...tick..._


	18. Part Eighteen: Anger

**:: Heart Less Love::**

"I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear."  
Martin Luther King, Jr

Part Eighteen: Anger

* * *

"Hello again, old friend."

Tifa came to a stop by the small cliff that overlooked Midgar. She was aware of the importance of this place; the sword that was rusty now, dug deeply into the earth and peering down over the broken ruins of a city she had called home for years. This was the place where Zack had died, and the sword thrust into the ground was his, and before Zack, it had been that of his mentor, Angeal. Tifa knelt briefly, touching her fingertips to her lips, then to the sword pommel. She had discussed this at length with Cloud, on various occasions, and once with Aerith. Whilst not as intimately connected with the legend that Zack was growing into being, he nevertheless had come to her village, had kept her from harm and had been the first love for Aerith. No jealousy remained in her heart, just glad acceptance. For every story that unfolded about Zack, she was filled now with regret that she had never known the exceptional young man better.

"Zack," she said quietly. "You know why I'm here, and why I'm talking to you. Aerith tells me you're still in the Lifestream, but that you can hear people if they call for you by name. I'm asking you just to listen for a little while, before I set out to do some very foolhardy things, things that will make Aerith angry and sad, but they are things only I can do to protect her. I'm not a Soldier, I don't have special powers or abilities and I'm not incredibly honed to martial perfection, like I was. But I am in love, and I want to try and at least put a wedge in the doorway, before it slams open and all hell breaks loose."

She sighed and smiled, pushing fingers through her fine, dark fringe. "You know, Zack, it's been a while since I properly looked Midgar over. It's become a real wreck, visited only by bad memories and ghosts of people who cannot bear to leave. Aerith tells me that it's because of the high amount of Mako being concentrated here. She says that ShinRa built their metropolis here because it was so high in natural effusions of the lifestream. You know, if I stood up and looked hard enough..."

Tifa did just that, using the pommel of the sword for balance and narrowing her eyes against the faint streaks of dawn light. She could pick out the old mako reactors, now forgotten and laid to rest. There was the scaffold of the old ShinRa tower, like a spidery collection of webs, atop which perched a cocoon of forgotten evils. The old Sister Ray cannon was still here too, beginning to rust over. Some of the old bolts and wiring had come loose, and it was draped into the grounds of the old sector 4 hangouts.

"I thought so, I can still see it," she murmured. The area in question was sector 7. She could still see the crush of the metal plates, all jammed in together as a clumsy, if compressed pile of rubbish. It was this that had torn away the lives of so many people, ruined business for many more. She still recalled that day, rushing for the wire and the hook that Barrett used to get them out of there. The smell of sweat on Cloud's skin and her frantic breathing interspersed with tears, sobbing as she bid a wretched farewell to those she had to leave behind. To Biggs, to Wedge, to Jessie; to her family and all the other unseen, shadowy members of Avalanche, to her beloved bar and to memories she had finally begun to craft from despair.

"It's still a god ugly place, Zack, even with the flowers growing back. That'll never change. Look, if you can see it, there are the warehouse scientific buildings they used to cover up the entrance to Deepground. If Yuffie has gone anywhere, it'd be there. I guess the Black Materia needs to resonate with the lifestream to bring out its powers." She lowered her hand from shading her eyes, and turned her attention back to the sword. "I have a favour to ask. Honour, dreams, pride; I have all these things and more. I have a cause to fight for. You might not hear me, you might not even be able to help me from where you are but... walk with me, in spirit Zack, and help me protect her. Help me somehow end all this, please..."

She spent a good couple of minutes staring at the sword, then jumped as in the distance a lone wolf howled, the hair on the back of her neck rising rapidly in response.

"...that's good enough for me," Tifa laughed shakily as she picked her backpack up, and took a quick sip of water from her canteen. Buckling it back into the slot reserved for hiking flasks, she set her jaw, "Alright then, let's get on with this."

* * *

_It took me a long time to stand upright after those final events that horrible day._

_I don't think you have any concept of the kind of pain it caused me. I was nothing but a wreck, the kind that you can't bear to tear your eyes off because it's so grotesque and so fascinating at the same time. I moved like a robot on automatic, I cleaned, cooked and rebuilt what I could from the ashes of another life._

_How could you go and leave me? How could it have all come down to this?_

_I was nothing before you met me, Aerith. I was a girl filled with hate and anger, filled to the brim with bile I couldn't throw up. I wanted to die and drag the wretched world along with me. But you made me want to live; you made me want to be someone better. You were all I could think about, you were a morning and a sunset and all the daylight in-between, and when the stars came out, you would be the night sky, and you were the stars I hung my hopes upon._

_I came here from Nibelheim, a long time ago. I was so young, new to this wide world and attempting to tough it out. Barrett and Jessie were kind to me after they found me exhausted and mentally lost. Sure, I know revenge isn't always the way to go but what they did offer me was a way to keep on my feet and a way to keep my head above the water that threatened to drown me._

_I used some of my inheritance to open up the Seventh Heaven bar. I wasn't sure I even wanted to be a bartender to begin with, but that home building sensation gave me a new direction and purpose. The locals who came in for a drink became regulars, and those regulars became friends. As my business grew and the word of it spread throughout the slums, so did the small knot of Avalanche members, Biggs and Wedge who were like brothers I never had._

_I loved them dearly, I found myself sometimes smiling when I caught my reflection in that big sheet of a mirror I had placed behind the racks of spirits in my bar. It looked fresh and uncertain; it looked different to those smiles of my childhood. I realised I was growing up, rather than simply growing older._

_It was here that I also met Johnny. You never really met him or knew about him, and I don't really talk about him much. He was an ex-boyfriend; he'd left Nibelheim before Cloud had, long before. His family had sent him to business school in Midgar, but he hated it, he just wanted to be in a band and to listen to music. I found him again here in Sector Seven. He was still like a big kid, with his hair spiked up in the trend of the week and dyed red. He had a new girlfriend, Marietta. She was a nice girl, understanding about the ties Johnny and I had, she didn't have a jealous bone in her body. I did though, and found the constant reminder of him and what my childhood had been a little more than disturbing, so our contact simmered to a low point. He never wrote me another letter._

_Of course in the early days of setting up my bar and the new custom it attracted, it also got the attention of Don Corneo, that underworld gangster boss from over in Wall Market. He tried to muscle in on the business, tried to get us to pay him 'protection' money._

_Barrett soon saw that it was never mentioned again._

_I think Koch still winces when thinking about Barrett's gun arm!_

_I didn't expect that five years later, I'd find Cloud, sitting on a bench in the train yard. I didn't think he'd forget a lifetime so easily._

_With him came trouble, and with trouble came you._

_I can't describe the pain I felt as we sped away on that shining wire of hope and despair, looking back past my hair as the support crumbled and crushed everything beneath it. Down there, somewhere underneath the metal, lie the decomposing bodies of those I loved like family. Biggs, Wedge and Jessie. How can I ever tell you what this betrayal by ShinRa meant and how hot the burning of vengeance was in my mouth?_

_How can I ever let you know that even years later, I cannot let this anger go?_

_And when you left, when your eyes saw nothing and your smile was warm but empty and lifeless; how can you ever understand that my heart died too?_

_You'd given me back so much, all the feelings I had thrown aside, all the love I had let rot, all the desires I had let die; all of these dreams and more, you scooped them up and planted them in the barren flowerbed that was my heart and let them grow, tended with your love and care._

_And you were dead._

_It should have been me._

_I don't know how miracles come about, but you came back to me..._

* * *

The wolf stopped moving on the ridge and turned its head so the grey fur ruffled up in the wind that blew through the bones of Midgar. She too paused and looked calmly at that wolf, which seemed to be warning her against moving too far forward.

Tifa pulled her weight onto her back foot as she leaned out a little, peering down the chasm of a broken road that slammed into the dark areas of what had been a sector plate. The road signs were all still fixed firmly to the road, pointing down into the oblivion below. She swallowed and moved back a couple of steps, nodding to both herself and to her wolf guardian, who had begun to skirt closer to her.

"I see, thanks Zack," she murmured. It was ridiculous, she had no proof that the wolf was Zack but... staring into those odd blue eyes, she had to believe it. "That was a close one."

Not wanting to waste time, as she knew her friends would be close behind her, she dug a hand into her pocket and pulled out the mini GPS, taking stock of her location and using the touchpad screen to get a better bearing. It seemed she wasn't so far from the Old ShinRa building, which was only a few miles out from the Deepground entrances. She squinted against the afternoon sun, peering out over the skyline.

"There, do you see it?"

Zack, the wolf, whatever it was; it turned its head and stared in the direction she'd pointed in. Set into the distance was the ugly ride of the proud upper offices of the ShinRa corporate buildings. The windows had been totally shattered and the utmost three levels melted to almost nothing. The wolf curled it's lips back into a snarl.

"I know," Tifa soothed, "I understand. But it's our landmark now." She glanced down at the gps again, trying to widen the search area for the handheld map.

"You know, Yuffie was always much better with this kind of technology than any of us, maybe it's a generation thing? I always seem to get lost. Before Aerith came back, when the Deepground was in operation, Yuffie helped Vincent with the WRO, she was in charge of a lot of the field tech." Tifa lowered her handheld and looked at 'Zack'. He was staring at her, now sitting on his haunches. "I often wondered why she stayed with him, but I guess it's more obvious when you're in love yourself, right?"

The wolf lowered his head in agreement, tongue lolling out to one side, as if amused.

Tifa couldn't help but smile back at such a wolfish grin, "Vincent never saw it of course. Men are completely dense about such things, unless you batter them with a shovel to try and get your point driven home. Anyway, Shelke was one of the Deepground soldiers, able to dive through technology by using her brain as some kind of computer interface. She had a lot of Lucretia's memories, but... she wasn't the woman Vincent had loved. He set Shelke up as being able to live her own life, just as her sister Shalua would have wanted. Vincent left the WRO and set up a branch arm of the organisation, and Yuffie went with him. She loved him, despite all his flaws, despite the monster he was deep inside."

Tifa sighed, "He never noticed. Is this how you want it to end, Yuffie? Is Jenova's legacy enough to take everything you've worked for slowly over time, away from you?" She looked at her GPS, and put it back into her pocket, "...is love worth forgetting?"

The wolf shook its head, shaggy mane swaying and then it came to all paws and nuzzled against her knee. Without thinking she reached down and touched the brow and muzzle, no fear dwelling inside her. It was to her as if the wolf were saying, 'Love exists, love endures' and 'do not give up, giving up is the worst thing you can do.'

"I never forgot her," Tifa murmured, tears touching her eyes as the wolf stopped its ministrations and stared up at her with those beautiful and unblinking eyes. She gave it her lopsided smile, a little waver because she was fighting the sudden need to weep, to fall to her knees and bury her face among those strands of fur and rub all her worries and fears away in its coat. She clenched her fingers a little around the fur covering an ear, and laughed, a sad little chuckling ghost of humour; "I promised myself I wouldn't. Come on, we're almost there, we're almost at the end game. Will you come with me, at least for a little longer...? I'm not as brave as I once was."

Those eyes seemed to say, 'You are braver than anyone I know,' But when Tifa set off towards the new route, clambering out over spars and fallen rocks, abseiling her way with trepidation down the sides of broken buildings, the wolf stayed by her side like a grey ghost.

* * *

"_What... what just happened..." said the lost little voice, the young Wutai was sat by the edge of the lake, staring helplessly out into it as Cloud remained unmoving, half in the water and sat on his heels. His eyes were dead and gazing into the grains of fine crystalline sand, borne from the grinding of shells and crystals over decades and centuries._

_The others crowded about the small fire they had made by the shore of the lake, no one had been willing to move and not a single one of them wished to separate from the others. It was as if their presence all in one place could ward off the darkness that Sephiroth had brought to this place like a dangerous disease. She was wrapped in a blanket, huddled by their packs and her hands clenched white-knuckled on the staff that Aerith had loved dearly._

_All of the Cetra's belongings had been packed into a small trunk to be shipped back to Midgar, to her mother. They had promised this much at least. The plan was to backtrack to the archaeologist site and send them via freight, over the seas to a world Aerith had struggled to escape from; a beautiful and lonely bird cocooned in ribs of steel. Even the glowing red orb, Titan, had been packed into those soft clothes and the folded up diary that Aerith had always kept with her, scribbling into each night about the fire and indignantly holding to her chest when anyone attempted to peek in._

_Tifa felt numb._

_She was as dead inside as the moment she had met Aerith – the embers of her love were ash in a heart that no longer beat to the clock, to the time measured out in kisses and laughter and friendship. She had been someone, finally! She was a someone to somebody worth having. In the end her tenuous grasp had slipped and the Cetra had fallen through her fingers. All her tears were spent now, her eyes raw and her skin cold. The air up in this forgotten city was so much chillier than even Nibelheim. Strange, given that on their arrival this city had felt warm, caught up in the grip of a mystical spring._

_But Aerith is dead, Tifa thought sadly, and she has taken the sunshine with her._

_Tifa relaxed and tightened her grip without thinking. So what if Aerith was gone? So what? Love would endure, and one day when it was all over they would meet again. One day, she would be there in the lifestream and she and Aerith could be together again and this pain would be nothing, a shade of a bad memory that is forgotten when held up to the light, seeing the small sparkles of something beautiful between the grey and black._

"_We all need to start thinking about our next move," Vincent's gravel-velvet voice purred from the fire._

_Her eyes closed; Vincent was right but she wanted to live in those memories just one more time. In those memories Aerith was alive and they were in love and the world seemed to be set afire by their love, burning and beautiful and ghastly all at once – A love that could change the hearts and minds of men forever. A love that had saved a broken soul from a depth better left to demons and devils, from the absolute silence of self loathing and hatred._

"_Yes," she rasped her voice raw yet from screaming, "we do need to. But one more moment."_

"_One more moment can easily turn into two, to four, to eight..." Vincent seemed to shift; she could hear the sand rearranging itself underneath him. "It's time we discussed revenge."_

_Everyone looked around at Vincent on those words. Her own eyes suddenly fierce, she almost felt as though the fire of hell's fury itself could come pouring out of them, not towards him, but towards the man in black, towards Sephiroth. Revenge, what a sweet and delicious word to roll about on her tongue; it tasted just tart enough that it tingled on her lips when she murmured. "Revenge."_

_Yuffie nodded slowly, as if coming out of a dream, her young face determined and pinched pale, "He's right, this doesn't end here. I haven't come all this way; we haven't, for this to stop us."_

"_Aerith did her part," Cid added, "She prayed, she fought in the only way she could."_

"_Dying?"_

_Tifa cut her eyes to where Cloud was, his back to them and still half in the cold water of the lake. No lights bubbled up from underneath it; the entire city seemed to have extinguished itself along with Aerith. She was chilled by the way Cloud held his self in the water; his head was angled so it looked like he was staring down into the depths, willing the angel to come floating back out of it. He kept talking, a dry rustle of meaningless words; "She's gone, and we let it happen. She's gone, and all I did was stand there. She wanted tomorrow, she wanted a future-"_

"_No," Tifa was shocked the word was ripped off her own lips, but once she started, she couldn't find the energy to stop herself or the tears, "That's not true!"_

_Cloud's head moved a fraction and everyone else fell fearfully silent. He said calmly, "You know she spoke of the future more than any of us."_

"_Yes, she did, but Aerith," Tifa grasped the staff as hard as she could to hold it against her body. The wood was smooth and empty, there was no presence to either comfort her or love her in the hard staff, there were only splinters and even they pricked lightly, as if with sorrow and grief. "Aerith wanted us all to look at the future and want it! Even if it cost her everything, even if the price was the highest to be asked of anyone, she still paid it, she paid it for us... Our love," why couldn't she stop talking? "...it was taken from me before I could even ask... before I could... But I respect her for fighting, for her choices! I respect that she took this war in both hands and tried! What have we done but sit around screaming and crying! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE, CLOUD?" The last was a scream almost torn from her very lungs._

_No one dared breathe._

_Cloud shook his head and whispered, "I did nothing. But you're right, we can still do something."_

_Yuffie nodded with eyes like saucers. Even the young girl could sense the intense air hanging all around them, and her voice, tiny and reed-like, cut in, "We can still fight."_

* * *

"We can still fight," Tifa repeated. Her memories were still as fresh to her and painful as though they had occurred only the day previous. She paused by the broken door to the Deepground Laboratory. There were fresh smears of blood on the floor.

The wolf-Zack stepped ahead of her into the waiting darkness, toenails clicking on the concrete. Where was her courage? Tifa bit her lip and stepped in, and was swallowed up by the night inside.

* * *

_Listen._

Yuffie wept into her hands, cuddled into the rocks by the broken computer equipment. The rocks down this far deep were infused with the eerie glow of the lifestream, they illuminated with a green light that made everything seem nightmarish and unreal. She felt like this madness was going to undo her.

One moment she was Yuffie, the simple ninja girl from a Wutai lineage that stretched back centuries, a proud girl and one day, the ruler of her clan. She was Yuffie, the vagabond who stole materia and climbed mountains and stayed close to the side of Vincent Valentine. She was Yuffie, the dark scion of Jenova's legacy and driven mad by the voices and the very radiation that dominated her every waking thought.

"Mom," she cried helplessly, "Mom!"

She wasn't sure which she meant, the twisted dark demon that visited her dreams and tormented her with voices when she was awake, that forced tears from her and drove her deep into the belly of Midgar on an unholy crusade for materia, power and destruction.

Or the kind and gentle woman she barely remembered from a childhood filled with danger because of ShinRa. The woman who had loved her father deeply and gave that stern and blocky face of his delightful angles of joy and passion and who had been the village medic and had lovingly tended Yuffie's knees when she had fallen over.

She felt as if neither memory could ever beat the other.

Shiny baubles of materia were gathered at her feet, but the one that caused so much pain and terrible joy was the one clutched in her hands. It was slick, and without light inside or out, as if it rejected even the faint glow of the rocks to the brightest sunshine. It felt alien and horrible, almost writhing inside her soul when her natural instincts for materia reached out to it. She wanted to shower, to scour her skin off; but at the same time, she wanted to clutch it to her chest and never let it out of her sight, she wanted to be part of it.

"Mom," Yuffie snuffled, the tears had suddenly ceased and a calm darkness flowed through her.

_Mother is here, mother loves you._

"It hurts."

_Without pain there can be no resolution – there must be an ending._

"I don't know how to use it."

_Mother will teach you, mother knows everything. Come, my daughter, my little one, let me show you how._

The actual way to use the materia was terribly complex, and Yuffie's head swam. Had it always been this way, for those less gifted with materia? This was a high level magic, one she wasn't even sure she would be capable of.

_Listen._

Her brow furrowed, and then she stilled, straining her senses.

There, footfalls. They were familiar to her, and another set, a kind of four legged animal: Red? No. Red would never leave his precious canyon, or their stock of 'Cetra' materials. Her lip curled in a sneer, derisive and dismissive. "I'll kill whoever it is."

_It is not them you should be worrying about. Your brother comes._

"Impossible, she should have killed him," Yuffie felt panic, then a strange calm and a sly smile crawled over her face, "But, maybe we can turn them on each other. I need time, I need time!"

_Yes, my beautiful and clever child; time you will have, and then we shall sing the Song for the end we desire!_

Yuffie nodded as deep inside of her something screamed out, beat against this madness that was chewing at her brain and dissolving her heart. Her hands caressed the materia, and for a moment she could see her face – instead of soot streaked, bloodied and wild eyed with delirium and cruelty, this face was pale, pain filled and fragile. But the image faded.

"Save me," she whispered, as she moved from the rocks and deeper still into the caverns, "...save me..."


	19. Part Nineteen: Degeneration

**:: Heart Less Love ::**

No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness. ~Aristotle

**Part Nineteen: Degeneration**

* * *

"..ake up..."

It was summer.

She was stood in a brilliant field that wavered between green and yellow, the yellow where the flowers opened their faces up to the sunlight and drank deep of those solar rays. Sometimes she saw flashes of white in the sky, puffy clouds that made their achingly slow way over the universe. She wore her usual pink dress, and it flowed to her ankles. There was no red jacket today and about her neck was a loosely clasped collection of threads.

She reached up and touched the ribbon woven into the peak of her braided ponytail, feeling the small knob of white materia nestled in the protective weaves. It was still there, it was still safeguarding her in its way, a memento of a mother she never truly got to know.

"_That girl, she said the sky frightened her."_

In surprise she turned about to her left and saw him standing ten or a little more metres away from her, his head tilted back and looking up at the sky. He looked slightly different to how she'd remembered him, how he'd left her as. His hair was longer and his skin paler, and his scars on his cheek seemed to be more comfortable than new and angry. But his eyes were wiser and his smile sadder, sweetly so; much more than she could recall. This was a Zack who had seen the world in all the glory and ill it could be cloaked in, and had taken it to his heart lovingly.

This was Zack.

"_Zack, is it really you?" _Her voice was like his, an echo or a memory. She sounded fragile and lost, she sounded like she had thrown her dreams across rocks and left them to rot, then came back to the sweet compost they had made to grow new flowers in.

"_You've changed," _He didn't look down yet, he seemed so interested in the sky that was the same colour as his eyes. It caught her to quick to realise that however much she deeply loved Tifa, she would always compare the sky with his eyes, and that her perfect day compromised the exact shade they were. He was her first love, as precious to her as her Cetra abilities, or her mothers. _"This world is beautiful though. I should have guessed you'd have flowers here. You should know it's me, this is me. I missed you."_

The plain and simple words caught in her throat. She swallowed, chin dimpling faintly against tears. _"I missed you too, but, what are you doing here?"_

"_I decided to walk the Hero's way again. I know she needs my help, more than you ever did."_

"_I needed your help?"_

"_You did. You were so alone and scared, you needed a hand to help you start moving through this world. But now, things have changed again. You're no longer dead, and the threat is still present and as dangerous as ever. You need to move, or the heart of your world will suffer."_

"_I don't understand, why..." _Her eyes filled up, curse her emotions! _"Zack, where are you?"_

"_That's a little better," _Those beautiful blue eyes finally looked at her, tilting his head and for a moment she wanted to run to him and cry. She wanted his arms to hold her and comfort her, to tell her that things would work out in the end. She wanted to apologise for leaving their love behind, she wanted him to really meet Tifa, to come back and be in her life again, to be there. Then she wasn't standing still any longer and she was moving towards him. _"I'm in Midgar, right now, deep beneath the ruins."_

"_What's down there?"_

"_The secrets and the lies; they're all down there. That's where you have to go whether you like it or not."_

"_I'm scared," _She whispered, and held back from adding, 'I need help'.

Zack's face was misty, and as she got to him and reached to touch his arm gently, her hand passed through as if swatting simple air. Closing her fingers, she drew her hand back and stared helplessly up into his kind, wise face and those brilliant blue eyes that endured, melting into the sky as his voice was carried off by that dreadful wind she had felt so long, long ago. _"She needs it more."_

"_Zack, ZACK!"_

But he was gone.

"-if you...'t wake...one, gone, ple..."

Aerith itched at her shoulder, there was a strange pressure there and a moment of massaging it distracted her enough that she nearly missed the whisper of a cloak brushing against her legs, cold in comparison to the warm sunshine of this world. She stiffened, her nose catching the familiar scent of rust, that coppery and decaying tang. Her mouth dried up and then she closed her eyes, mouthing the words 'really?' to herself.

"_Melding with the Planet, I will cease to exist as I am now."_

His voice was strange. It was dominated by regret, which made the usual dark and rich tones a new dirge of sorrow and grief. She looked over her shoulder at the man stood so close she could reach out and hold him by the hand. He was so tall, and well muscled, though the black he draped himself in as if in funeral clothes made him look slimmer than he was. His hair was long and silver-white and his sharp featured face drawn with feelings he clearly wished he didn't have.

"_You," _she said.

His eyes widened, looking at her in surprise. They didn't have the split pupils she remembered, they were a soft green-blue like a calm ocean at dawn. He closed his eyes, then opened then; perhaps wishing that if he did that, she would vanish.

"_Then it's true, this is the Promised Land."_

Aerith shook her head, _"No, this is my Promised Land, everyone has their own."_

"_I do not. I wonder why that is then..."_

"_Because Jenova was not Cetra," _Aerith's eyes crinkled with a sympathetic smile.

Sephiroth raked his eyes over her fragile frame, then said slowly, _"Why am I here in your world then? I killed you, I was driven to destroy everything and anything that had ever felt love."_

"_I forgave you, it's as simple as that."_

"_You forgave me?" _He clearly didn't believe her, and shook his head. _"So I am truly dead then."_

"_Yes, the will of Jenova has finally gone from your spirit. Jenova, the power of her scions driven mad by the proximity of great radiation; it was this that drove you completely insane. Your time here has cleansed you, it has taken all that pain and confusion away."_

"_Jenova is a parasite," _his beautiful face twisted in pain, _"I committed so many horrors."_

"_No, she wasn't. She was as weak as anyone when presented with an addiction. Jenova loved, she had children, she strove to fight it as hard as she could and in the end failed. It doesn't make her evil, it makes her normal," _Aerith smiled and touched Sephiroth's hand, _"As were you."_

"_I was normal..."_

"_The same as the rest of us."_

His answering smile was so terribly sad, _"Do you have a weakness, Aerith? I look hard, and did look hard and I couldn't see one."_

"_Oh I have a terrible weakness... I love too much, I am too giving, too selfless. I think that's an awful weakness, I can never say no."_

"_I see. Then, I will fade away... I will cease to exist as I am now..."_

"_Reborn as a God?" _She couldn't keep that playful sting out of her voice.

He laughed then; it was so unexpected she was sure the startle showed on her face. _"No, little Ancient, reborn as someone normal. Maybe we'll meet again, and this time, I can help..."_

"_Sephiroth," _she said.

But he was fading away, slipping out from under her hand and walking through the grass and the stems of flowers. He lifted his arms to the sunshine, and it flooded through his, glittering and then he was gone. She felt a certain degree of sadness.

"...can you hear m... rith! Aerith! Wake up..."

The pressure was there again and she closed her eyes, dizziness intruding on her. But not before a set of hands touched her shoulders, firmly and preventing her from turning in quick surprise. Her heart hammered on her ribs.

"_Just listen," _the quiet and calm voice commanded and she felt her muscles relax. This was a voice she had always heard in her ear, whispering through her dreams when she slept. _"Things are finally coming to an end of this story. The story of K'listo, Arkilles and Jenova, it is a long and deep story filled with danger and distress, with love and loss. You have been chosen, as the only living Cetra and the descendant of K'listo. Your will is the will that will make the final choice._

"_The price of a gift has been determined, and will hinge on what happens. Your gift, the memories, the abilities, use them all."_

"_Mom..."_

But when she wrenched free to try and catch a look at the mother she had only dreamed about, there was nothing. Only flowers, grass and that blue sky for as far as she could see. She stared for a few minutes, and then doubled up.

She was dripping with water?

Quickly running her hands over her face, she gasped, wiping the water out of her eyes and trying to free strands of her fringe from cloying up her mouth. Then another splash, and the pressure on her body pushing her to her knees, into the dirt and into the darkness, tearing this world from her...

* * *

"Wake up! Good grief!"

Aerith sat up so quickly that Cid jerked back, afraid she would headbutt him.

"What did you do?" She demanded, a fire in her eyes at being woken so rudely. Her eyes flicked to the cup her held and he made a feeble attempt at miming drinking. Of course the fact that she was dripping wet with the contents of the cup didn't help matters. "I see."

"Sorry, we had to wake you up."

"I was having a dream..." Her face was a riot of emotions, then none as she exerted her usual soft and cheerful calm, composing her delicate features. "How long was I asleep?"

"We all were, you just seemed to resist coming out of it. A day maybe."

"We lost a day?" She frowned, then glanced at the bed, "I wonder why I was under so heavily."

Cid watched her eyes take in the room; Aerith was as sharp as a knife these days, so no doubt she noticed the missing boots and rucksack, or the small pouch of materia that would be missing some of their shared stock, or the coat that was no longer hanging on the back of their room door. He saw this settle in with a relative quickness, and how her eyes slowly closed, mouth pursing faintly.

"She used sleepel materia on us."

"Tifa did?" Aerith wasn't able to keep the surprise nor the unbidden pride from her voice, "well, fancy that... No! I mean, why?"

"She probably did it to keep you safe. Don't you remember doing something similar once?"

"That's not right, the symmetry..." She shook her head, "No, no!"

"Maybe it's not a perfect symmetry this time, but we're going in reverse kind of too," Cid sighed and fumbled at his jacket pocket, then lowered his hand; he knew Aerith would only scowl and throw his damn cigs in the trash can, what would be the point, or indeed cost, of doing this stupid dance again? "This time you came back to life, and now Tifa rushes to her death."

"Her death..." Aerith paled, "Nibelheim."

"It's where the madness started, where she almost died. Last time it was another scion, Sephiroth. This time, it's Yuffie."

"This is terrible!" Aerith threw back the covers and began immediately hunting about her room for her clothes. Cid could hear the wind howling outside, better that she choose warmer clothes. "Hurry Cid!"

"Sweetheart, we're as ready as we'll ever be." The pilot got up and helped her look. His hands found a warm turtleneck sweater in dark green and a pair of tight fitting jogging pants, and knee high boots, both in dark brown. He also added a pair of fingerless knitted gloves to the mix. "Put these on."

"I'm not a child," the ancient retorted.

"No, you're not, but you're also panicking and being hasty. Haste makes waste, Aerith. What you need to do is calm down and think rationally, and clearly. Think in single steps, not big ones, and we'll get to where we need to be."

"Midgar," Aerith said, "But deeper."

"The old Deepground labs?"

"It's the only place they could go." She was peeling off her shift. Cid turned his back politely. "It's deep enough to touch the Lifestream, it's a way of empowerment. If Yuffie has the Black Materia, as we can assume she does, she'll need a lot of power to use it."

Cid couldn't help smiling; once Aerith began thinking logically, her mind was a well tuned machine. He added, "Like the Northern Crater?"

"Exactly. There was such a big wound there that the Lifestream was forced up through the world's crust to try and heal the damage. However, when you get down to it, you just need to be in very close proximity to the lifestream. The deeper you delve, the higher your chances are of completing that connection to the materia." She grunted, "These pants are tight."

"You're getting soft and fat," he grunted. It earned him a wet shift to the back of his head.

"Vincent?"

Cid ripped the shift off his head, blushing furiously. The door had opened and closed, admitting the silent Turk without even so much as alarming them to his presence. Clearly Aerith had only noticed, as she had the roam of the room, Cid was facing the window and staring at the bleak weather.

"You can turn around, I'm decent, I just need to brush my hair and gather my things."

Cid turned with a heaving sigh and then appraised the look of the ex-Turk. Vincent wore a variation on his black suit today, the jacket was cut in a different fashion; double breasted but with one flap folding over the other, tied into place with delicate care and the arms long and form fitting. The trousers billowed only faintly, but they too were tied down and tucked into knee high boots of black. About his neck lay the trademark red scarf, and over this peeked a deep hood also in red. Vincent's hands wre in a set of dangerous looking gloves, free to let his fingers move, but with ridged spines that followed the finger backs. He had a gun holstered at either hip, both of different makes.

"Kitted out for war," Cid remarked.

"Mmm, I have a feeling that will be what we walk into."

"Cloud ready?"

Vincent nodded, "He's on the phone to Barrett. He spoke with Reeve earlier. They're trying to set up relief forces, just incase Yuffie succeeds."

Cid didn't want to think about that, but it seemed present in their minds. What if Yuffie could complete that ritual? What if another Meteor came dropping out of the sky atop them? Cid didn't think there was much left in them to make a stand, not like they had done three times before.

But to his surprise, Vincent continued, leaning against the window pane. "I need to find her."

Aerith looked up from the bag she was stuffing her clothes into, sharing Cid's look. "Yuffie?" the ancient asked softly.

"Yes, I need to find her and tell her... she isn't a nuisance." The red eyes closed, "That I need her more than she needs me."

"Oh," Aerith said, then she smiled. Cid frowned, then gave Aerith a questioning look. The one he got in return was a plain 'men are so slow' look. She mouthed silently, 'They're in love.'

"OH..." Cid, as it crashed in. "By Gaia, are you serious?"

"I am."

"So, does Yuffie know?"

"Yuffie thinks no one loves her, and that love is to be lost," Vincent sighed, "She was always there for me. I need to be there for her. But I cannot do this alone, Aerith," he moved and turned his face towards her, naked pleading written there; it was a look that did not suit him and Cid felt unsettled by this vulnerable side he was seeing. "Please, bring her back to me."

"I think, you should be the one to bring her back to herself, Vincent," she slotted materia into her bracelet, and smiled, "Love can do this. Love can do almost anything."

"So it can..." he said, as the door opened and Cloud poked his head in.

"Guys," he said, his voice worried, "Get to the ship, we have a call and you need to hear this..."

* * *

"_..is this Cid Highwind?"_

"Yes, son," Cid chomped his cig between his teeth, and ignored the pointed look thrown at him by Aerith. He pressed the buttons, making the voice on the line louder.

They'd all crammed onto his baby of a ship, gathering their selves up in the main control room where they had done so many times before. Only this time, they were fewer and older, tired looking and scared. Where Tifa had strafed back and forth by the prow like a nervous gazelle, Aerith seemed to fold into herself now, like a pack of cards. Cloud was leaning over the other side of the comms desk and Vincent was sat by Aerith. His scarf moved faintly and Cid could hear the low rumble of Vincent's voice from this far away, no doubt attempting to calm the fraught Ancient.

Cid felt weary, he didn't remember ever feeling this tired. He would give up a week of smoking if he could just have a worry free nights sleep.

"_My name is Kyle, I worked at the hospital."_

"I remember him," Aerith said unsteadily, "He was the orderly."

"_That's right ma'am, I was. I'm currently undergoing recovery medicine for severe manipulation, luckily it hasn't damaged my mind, but others here haven't been so lucky."_

"Long-term materia effects can be detrimental," Cloud smiled, "I'd know that as well as the next one."

"Yes, but you weren't being exposed to the 'manipulation' type. It forces the subject to lose their rational, personal thoughts. All your being caves in and does whatever the wielder of that materia wishes of them." Aerith shuddered. "It's a horrific materia, and takes a special kind of person to use it. And by special, I mean terrible."

"_I'm sorry to be so abrupt, but I have something to tell you, something you should be aware of."_

"Go on, son, we're not getting any younger," Cid suddenly had one of those awful feelings. It began as a coldness in the pit of his stomach and grew to an icy frost, working its way up his spine and then to his neck. His throat felt choked and his brain began to ache.

"_It's about Faben, sir. The doctor, the one who was dead, who manipulated us all. Well you see sir, his body is missing. We don't know where it went. We checked the footage from the morgue sir, and well... it seems like the corpse got up and walked out!"_

Aerith's strangled gasp was barely covered, and Cid watched as Vincent swept his arms around the Cetra protectively. For all the faults he may have had, Vincent had a deep soft spot for vulnerable women. Or just women in general. Cid firmed his jaw; this news however was deeply disturbing, walking corpses? It was the stuff of horror, not stuff that happened in real life.

"_Sir? I'm sorry to be the bearer of that bad news, sir. I have to go rest now, good luck."_

The radio crackled into silence.

Cloud's blue eyes held Cid's, both of them without words for what had been said. The ship was still moving ponderously through the sky, dragging them along towards the heart of where everything always seemed to begin and end, one way another; to Midgar.

* * *

_She can walk a bit too quickly sometimes, and drags her feet at other times._

_When we take breaks, she buries her face into her hands and pretends she isn't crying, talking through it all. She talks to me about the wedding, about her hopes and dreams. She tells me all about her life, the joys and the pains. She says, "I own a bar in Edge, you'd like it I think, it's all modern and clean, I like to use metal in my interiors." and then she'd laugh and add, "But Aerith will..."_

_Everything is 'Aerith will' or 'Aerith does'._

_She is a woman in such deep love that I feel as though I cannot compare as a guide or companion. Not that I can blame her. When I first met Aerith, I didn't expect that attraction I felt. I was always a bit of a ladies man, but she was so different, so fresh._

_I loved her deeply, but all things must move on and change._

_You probably hardly remember me, I was young when I came to those snow peaked mountains, young when I fought the fires and flames and young when I tried to save your life. In the end, both of us failed._

_But that doesn't make us failures, no, it doesn't._

_It makes us hard working people._

_Are you scared? Going so deep into the earth where the whispers of the plates moving and shifting grumble and groan through the rocks, where the cries of the lifestream echo about in a sweet dirge. You have courage enough for ten lions, I admire that._

_I had that too, and still do._

_Your eyes are so sad._

_Don't give up! I want to tell you that, don't stop trying!_

_Instead all I can do is stay close to you, follow you and herd you. All I can be is your eyes in the deeper dark places, and make sure you don't break your neck if you step on a rock wrong._

_Tifa, you aren't born a hero, you're made one. By actions, by thoughts. Bravery doesn't mean doing heroic, amazing feats. Bravery is facing whatever comes with your head held up high. And the world's more amazing hero will be by your side, as we continue on._

_As we walk deeper, I almost hear Aerith, with her laughing voice, "Zack, your head is so inflated!"_

_And it makes me laugh too._


	20. Part Twenty: Interlude

**:: Heart Less Love ::  
**

Each of us is something of a schizophrenic personality, tragically divided against ourselves. ~Martin Luther King, Jr

**Part Twenty: Interlude**

* * *

_It was then and there and no other time in my life that I would seek the dark beast called Regret, I would curl by its side and croon a lovers tune to it. It welcomed me warmly to come and roast in the fires of a purgatory only I could make for myself. I gladly stayed and let my heart crack and burn, allowed the red blood to seep out and over-run my body and in the shallow breaths I heaved, stared into the darkness and broiled alive._

_The strange monster Regret was a friend to me now, he rubbed against my legs and gave my headaches when I tried to think. I looked out at the world with eyes distorted by glasses as dark as the underbelly of the new moon, I chewed my names and chanted, "But what if, but what if..." and didn't answer those queries, and neither did my friend. His response was to take my hand and lead me off down the path he walked as a lovers lane and there wrack my soul with doubt and tear my mind with memories needle sharp, sharper than they ever had been._

_I went because I was out of options, was this madness? Were those talons in my brain the beginning or the end? The beast, he said to me, let us go back to the start. To the very start, to things I heard about in stories and see there the history, the wonder and the lies and the beginning of my story._

_As I am led as a lamb to the slaughter, I think callously of myself and my lips whisper into the darkness inhabited only by me, "It's not long now."_

_You know what I mean, you said it just so. You twisted and squirmed and in the end you couldn't avoid either your fate or your own nature. Well now, neither can I, neither am I capable of dodging a bullet. I am waiting for the end, and it isn't long now._

_Tick... Tick... Tick..._

* * *

"It wouldn't kill you to pick your stuff up off the floor."

Her mother wasn't a very tall woman, but she somehow managed to make the brandishing of toys a threat worthy of giving a second glance. Yuffie considered what she could even say, then turned her eyes quietly back to the doll she held in her hands. Across from her sat Yuri, the son of her father's closest friend. Yuri was a little older than she was, a year or two maybe.

Yuffie heard her mother cough intermittently as she scooped up toys and bedsheets. She had been coughing a lot lately.

She held the doll up to her ear, "What's that Ana? Yes, mommy is ill."

Yuri's face was a picture of mixed emotions, but clearly worry, his eyes darting to Yuffie's mother quickly then back to where Yuffie was unconcernedly putting a new dress on her doll. "Yuf," he said.

"It's okay Yuri," the woman said in her soft voice, "This is Yuffie's way of telling me that she thinks I should take more care of myself. Just clean up when you're done, and I will, okay sweetheart?"

Yuffie looked up at her mother, that beautiful face made more so with the light dappling in from outside. She felt an ache in her heart, an ache she couldn't explain. "Mom, sure."

When they were alone together, Yuffie put the toys away and then dragged Yuri by the hand to the window. "Yuri, look up."

He did as was asked, staring into the faces of the Da Chao. Yuffie's large ground house was one of few that could stare directly up into the mountain range. She stared up, just as intent, her cloudy eyes turned to steel. "I see the Gods."

Yuffie nodded, then climbed out of the window with the agility expected of a ninja in training, something all Wutai children did from a young age, no matter what clan they belonged to. Yuri hesitated, but Yuffie shook her head, "Come on."

"Yuf, what if your mom finds out?"

"Mom went to sleep, she's sick." Yuffie felt tears threatening so she turned her back on him, "Come on already!"

Yuri followed her out of the window, his more elaborate clothing presenting a difficulty in doing so. He was dressed for the formal visit, Yuffie had long since abandoned pretense of being interested in pretty clothes, and only held up to liking dolls to keep her mother happy. She was the wind in those trees outside of her window, she loved being outside and getting into trouble. She preferred playing like a boy than as a princess of her clan. Together, Yuffie helping to stuff some of the more ornate trappings into Yuri's belt, they began their way to the mountains. Along the way, Yuri found many opportunities to point out to Yuffie that what they were doing what really nothing good, no good could come of it, nothing that would make either of their parents happy, let alone Lord Godo who seemed to frighten everyone outside of clan Kisaragi spitless.

But in spite of his whining, or maybe to spite him for whining, they made it to the mountain, where she suddenly sat down, legs folded, at the edge of the circle of water beneath the great carved mountain, head tilted up so she could stare up at those faces. Every evening they lit tapers and whispered prayers but...

"Gods, Da Chao, please heal my momma," she clapped her hands together, then moved and pressed her face into the dirt. It soaked up her tears.

Yuri watched, then, he too sank to his knees next to her, "Da Chao, please heal Lady Kisaragi."

Together they chanted their childish prayers at the mountainside, wishing and hoping until the twilight came, and people came looking for them, to find two small children still kneeling at the Da Chao step, still praying and weeping. It took time to calm them and settle them into bed, but all Yuffie could think about was her momma.

"Mom..." she whispered as sleep stole in.

* * *

It was one of the villages well kept secrets, one so tightly knit into the fabric of silence that other clans didn't even know of it. Yuffie knew, of course, but it was a matter of pride for her. She helped out often at the small clinic, with bandages and ointments, watching the gentle hands spin magic from the air, healing wounds and kissing away pain. She loved the days that she was allowed to come here, and even more when she was finally told that she too could spin the magic the way her mother did so easily.

It wasn't easy. Nothing worthwhile ever is. She spent a lot of excessively frustrating hours staring hard at thin air, to the point where she felt dizzy and light-headed. She knew it had something to do with the natural forces in the world and being of high intelligence she reasoned out that spending time among the elements and meditating would maybe help her.

She wandered up mountain paths, along the crooked vales of trees and immersed herself underneath waterfalls of chilly water to try and seek the answers of nature and balance. That was the key, balance. Her mother had wisely told her, between sipping her herbal tea and coughing, that balance was all a person needed in the world, to make things happen. Good and evil lived in balance, as did order and chaos. When she had naively said that surely light would beat shadows, her mother had laughed and said, "Light creates shadows, does it not? You might illuminate enough but never so much as to erase a shadow."

She listened to the sounds of the world, to the sounds of people in the marketplace and the temples. She sometimes went outside of the village and tried to hear to whispering of animals and birds, sometimes the push and pull of the tide, breaking huge wages on the jagged cliffs close to her home. She would return each night to her room, and light the candles and tapers and pray for her mother's health, watching how the candle made shadows on the walls that danced and leaped, as if in a play. She would stare into those shadows for demons and devils, waiting with hands on her knees. But nothing came, only soft quiet.

Once, in the middle of the med clinic her mother ran, the sparks of light glittered on her fingertips and her heart swelled with joy. She rushed to show her mother, who looked so pleased, so delighted that Yuffie threw her arms about her. At only seven she was quickly becoming too tall, she was tall for a Wutai. "Momma," she whispered, "I did it!"

"Yes, you did, you did," her mother said sweetly, "But remember my darling, use it to heal never to harm."

"I promise!" Yuffie chirped, "Always! I swear it!"

Two and a half months later, the day was a cloudy one. The sky seemed to be darker than usual as she stood in her formal robes, hair tightly drawn up from her face despite her youth. Her father stood across from her, and without a word he turned and moved away through the beginning drizzle of rain.

She stood and watched him go, there were no words to be said between them, there was only bitterness. There was a foul taste in her mouth and nose, one that she couldn't bring herself to spit out. Instead, she clutched at her robe skirts.

"Yuffie," said Yuri at her side. He was ten now. He was older, much taller and growing into good looks, but he still spoke to her with such deference, "What should we do?"

"I don't know..."

"We prayed... so hard..."

"I know, I know, and I even... I even learned..." She bit her lower lip, tears running through the chalky makeup, hair coming loose in the steady drizzle of rain as she stared down at the grave marked with a simple headstone.

**Kasumi Kisaragi**

**Wife, Mother and Beloved by All**

_**Live with the stars now.**_

All of her hard work, for what?

Her mother was gone, illness had stolen her out from under her, just as the war was reaching its height, when more sick people would come to their clinic each day, when the battle would be on their doorstep. She gritted her teeth.

"I swear it..."

* * *

_What was all this hard work for?_

_In the end, the war still broke against Wutai. I saw them, on the days ending of the brutal struggles between eastern and western powers. I saw the Soldier with the glowing blue eyes, his honest and surprised face. I told him I would beat him, I swore it. I had no other option but to do this._

_I came back, sometimes, to my home and to my father. He was always working, too hard, too many wrinkles for a man too young. We rarely spoke and I knew why. It was because I looked almost exactly like my mother, a woman he had put on a pedestal above this dirty world and held his standards of love and adoration to her. I wasn't my mother and this hurt him more than I could ever say. It made me sad. He would never look at me and see his daughter. So I just stayed away from home, longer and longer each time. I ignored the cries of the masters, who insisted I learn more, do more, that one day I would be the leader of their clan._

_I didn't want that._

_I wanted to find out why the magic hadn't worked for me, why the prayers had seen fit to be ignored. Was the Da Chao unkind and un-listening? Why would they take my mother out of the world she loved so much?_

_I swore I would never use my powers to harm. I swore it._

_Imagine my surprise when it was years later that I came upon you all in an ambush. There was a slight girl who spun magic the same way that my momma had. She moved her hands in more intricate circles and the power I felt flowing out of her like a waterfall was palpable and painful and sweeter than sugar. I was drawn to it intimately. Of course, I was also drawn to the materia. I couldn't seem to help myself, all I wanted was to hold it, to feel the words trapped inside, to see what wonders they could hold in the orb depths._

_As we journeyed together, I accidentally let you see me use it. I didn't mean to, Honoured Daughter. It was to be a secret, my mother had drilled that into me, every day. Magic without materia was a secret. Magic without a visible source was a danger. If people knew my secrets then they would take me far away, and I would never see home again. But your face was blank, you pretended you hadn't seen me do it. I didn't quite know what to make of it, and every evening when I would clumsily help you to make a fire or fetch water, I would wait for some mention of it, any hint of the wonder you had seen a nobody create._

_As we sat by the Cosmo Candle, you watched me through the flames._

_Your eyes, they haunt me. Green, steady, searching._

_Beautiful eyes, mesmerising in their frank open stares and bewitching with the mysteries that must lie beyond them. I wanted to know what kind of things you could be thinking about me, about the things I had done. I wanted to understand what it was that made you keep quiet. In the end, you looked away from everyone and declared yourself a loner, the outsider, the unknown quantity. I probably didn't even register on your scale of 'cetra-ness'._

_And then you died._

_I don't know what to think or feel, but not long after we were within close proximity to that Black Materia and suddenly I could hear my mother calling to me, suddenly you and my mother and the prayers all blended into one voice screaming inside my head. As time went on, I thought the pain would die out, that it was just grief or despair, that no one would ever be able to tell me what was going on in my life._

_But here I am._

_I am Jenova's child, as much as a child of the Cetra. I have cursed blood._

_You too, return to the crime scene, and waded through darknesses of your own past to reach out to try and snatch me back from it all. But you are not the prayer I asked for. I did not weep on my knees in the dirt for you, Aerith._

_Go home, be safe. But do not come near me._

_Because I will kill you. Because I cannot control myself._

_...because even out of pity, you wouldn't ever release me..._

* * *

This was as good a time as any for a break.

They'd really pushed themselves hard all day and by now her feet were aching, and they all looked worse for wear. She found herself staring from face to face of her friends as they settled onto miscellaneous pieces of junk, drinking water and mopping brows with whatever clean bits of clothing they had, relatively speaking. Aerith wondered if they had all been this tired when fighting their way towards the Northern Crater. Is this how they had all felt on their way there, to that final fight, the last showdown.

Desperate.

That was the feeling inside her heart, it made her eyes water with terror. She wasn't a stranger to fear, she'd grown up hunted by ShinRa and tormented by their constant attempts to regain her into their custody. She'd lived a life controlled by an underlying hysteria that someday she would have to go back into that laboratory, where the men had no faces, where the needles were sharp and the tables cold and the only nature she saw was herself and the other poor specimens kept trapped in tubes. Her hands tightened on her arms, bending her head so her fringe would hide her face. She knew she couldn't control the panic rising in her throat.

And now Tifa was gone, now she had gone to the world where Aerith loathed, where all her nightmares lived. She was walking the dark ways and hidden paths, she was placing all her prayers and hopes on the single goal that she alone would be able to subvert this damage, that she could take away all the pain and change it all.

Wasn't it supposed to be her that went, not Tifa?

Why...?

"Aerith?"

She snapped her head up, wiping away tears in a flash. "Yes, sorry, what was it?"

"Water, you need to drink some," Cloud rattled the water skin at her so she took it gingerly in her fingertips. As he sat down beside her with a sigh, one of his arms came about her shoulder. She didn't move, as he softly said, "The last time I properly held you, I had to let you go."

Her eyes were brimming again. Would she have to do the same? Would her last embrace with Tifa be the one where she left her, let her fall away from the world? Was that all there could be in store for them, down in those depths? Loss? Death?

"Tifa's stronger than you think, Aerith. She didn't go into this blindly."

"She went into this for me though, didn't she?"

"Yes, she did." Cloud smiled, "When Tifa was a little girl, she was all about herself. Her mother dying probably had a lot to do with it, and the events of Nibelheim likely hardened her further. Even though she saved me, I'm sure it was self motivated to begin with, before you began to melt her icy walls. Now, she's a grown woman. I see her as a woman, not a rippled image of a dream. She sees you as someone who made her capable of being normal, as normal as we get."

"I didn't do anything special," Aerith protested, looking numbly at the water skin.

"Didn't you? You loved her. I think that's special enough."

"Love is?"

"It makes the world go around. And to Tifa, you are her entire world. Remember that." Cloud squeezed her shoulders in a friendly manner, "Once, I could have said the same. Not now, but you are maybe... the sunlight on my world. Everything in my world exists because of you."

"Cloud, really..." she was crying now, dropping the skin and covering her eyes, "I don't know if I can do this!"

"You can."

"I can't!"

"You can, and you will, because you'd never let her down."

He was right. She could never let her down, or let her go. She could never walk away from the amount of trust placed in her. She scrubbed furiously at her eyes. Glancing about at everyone, she stood upright and brushed her skirts off, dislodging Cloud's arm. A swipe of her hand had snatched up her staff, the Princess Guard. How long had it been since she had even held it?

… _a sigh of relief._

_That was the rush of air out of her lungs. Tifa lay silent on the bed apart from the soft rise and fall of her chest to indicate she was sleeping. Aerith passed a hand over Tifa's face lovingly, then it moved to pick up the red materia she had left on the bed stand. It glowed in the dark, casting orange and crimson lights across her face. Titan; a mighty giant, a force of strength._

"_I don't do this lightly, you know," she said to the bed, to the woman sleeping on it peacefully and blissfully. "I do this with a heart so heavy it should break. I do this because you're all I..." she choked. _

_Covering her mouth her free hand picked up her staff. It was beautiful in design, with crystals and delicately carved flowers and vines, inlaid with silver, gold and diamonds. Looking at it, she could imagine how her magical power intensified as she channelled through it. No, this was the right way to do it. It could only endanger her friends, and her lover._

"_...it's the only way, Tifa, I'm so sorry," Aerith bent over and kissed Tifa's smooth cheek, and whispered, "Soon. It won't be long now... be strong..."_

"Be strong," she said aloud.

They all looked up at her and she realised that she had burst out with those two words from an awkward silence. Blushing, she clutched harder at the carved staff. "I mean it, it's not going to be pretty down there. Down there, is death. You'll see Yuffie at her worst, you'll see radiation sickness, and she'll tell you things you'll hate to hear. She'll scream at you, hate you and even wish death upon you. She will injure us in any way she can, to preserve herself and the Jenova blood inside her, killing her mind and senses. I don't know exactly what I am supposed to do but... I will do something. I'll save her, somehow. Be strong, and stay with me. Please!"

The last came out as an unintended shout, but Cloud stepped up to her side. "Of course."

Cid laughed and nodded, "Aerith, we've always been with you, we always will be. You're our precious friend, and to me you're like the kid sister I never had."

"We will be together, until the end. This time, allow us to accompany you, we will be your strength, Aerith," Vincent's eyes glowed with unshakeable trust. She hadn't known the phone line was active, but the crackling voices of her friends missing came to her ears, flooding her with support.

Reeve. Barrett. Marlene and Denzel. Red. Her mother. Rufus, Tseng, Reno and the rest of them.

She nodded, "Thank you. Then... it's time."

Turning swiftly, she marched resolutely into the shadows of the doorway, with her friends, her dearest companions at her back, helping her to light the darkened way.

* * *

"Pheeeeew!" Tifa stopped in the narrow passage, hands on her knees and feeling her muscles ache, "It's so dark down here. I can't see my hand in front of my face, didn't help that I lost the torch a few corridors back, eh?"

Her wolf companion lolled his tongue at her in the way he did when laughed, most likely at her.

"Yeah, I know, I-"

She went silent instantly. She hadn't imagined it, there, another one just after. Footfalls, the sound of things dragging and moving. Pursing her lips and breathing through her nose as quietly as she could, Tifa flattened herself to the wall. Around the corner of the previous crossroads she saw a flood of light moving about, checking purchase, trying to see the path ahead. She glanced to where Zack was in the pitch black, the only hint of him being that light glistening off his blue eyes.

_It could be the guys, they probably woke up quickly, I wasn't ever much of a materia user..._

The light rounded the corner, blaring into their faces and she lifted her arms to shade her eyes and protect her night-accustomed vision from the sudden glare. She heard a hissing chuckle of laughter, as whomever it was drew closer to her. "Hello? Who is it?"

"Oh, you're her girlfriend, aren't you... how wonderful this is. We haven't formally met, but I'm sure you know all about me..." the torchlight moved, coming to rest under the chin of a man. His left face side was normal, and unremarkable; it was the right side that had her attention, mutated beyond recognition with pulsating boils and odd little tentacles draping down the neck and towards the chest. The man wore a surgical lab coat and he was grinning with half a mouth, the rest an open morass of sharpened teeth. "I'm Doctor Faben..."

_Aerith killed him, he was dead... but... Jenova could regenerate too... shit..._

"Jenova," she whispered.

"That's right, the mutating cells of Jenova are quite remarkable things, enough to prevent complete death. It put me in a state of near death, repairing my body as best the cells could do. I have to say, tentacles are quite last season..." the doctor was advancing on her, she felt frozen in fear. "I know Aerith will be coming, not only for the other scion and the materia, but for you. Whilst I relish the chance to murder the little bitch, I don't mind destroying her heart first!"

She braced herself, the right arm was a vast trunk of meat, a tentacle covered in barbs. It lashed out at her, driving her into the wall of the corridor and through it – apparently it had a very thin wall. She reached out as she fell, only to see the wolf leaping on Faben. The fall took longer than she had expected, her backpack was loose and falling alongside her. She was falling... she watched the darkness recede as green light overtook it.

Was this dying?

_Aerith... I'm sorry..._

Tifa closed her eyes, waiting for the final dispersion of her soul.

Instead, she slammed into the hard floor, her backpack landing beside her and the contents of it scattering all over the floor, from basic materia, to cloths, food and even first aid supplies. Her PHS and GPS went skittering over the rocky edge into the flood of the Lifestream.

Tifa grabbed at her ribs and whistled out air. She had most certainly cracked some. After a few moments of writhing around in agony, she came to a stop when she saw the feet planted firmly on the ground, before the river of the glowing Lifestream. The black silhouette didn't move, it seemed to be staring down at her, with glowing pale eyes.

"...Oh shit, just great," she groaned.

Yuffie laughed.


	21. Part TwentyOne: Deliverance

**:: Heart Less Love ::**

No bonds attached him to this life, and the only thing he would regret leaving is the Sky.  
Kendo Yoshida

**Part Twenty-One: Deliverance**

* * *

"Did you just fall out of the sky?" Yuffie looked up.

Tifa took several long breaths, trying to feel out the extent of the damage the fall had done to her. Her right side felt fiery, and painful when she breathed, it wasn't a particularly good sign. All being said however, Yuffie was more interested in staring up at where Tifa had come falling from. The young ninja was dishevelled. The travelling cloak was torn in various places and the usually pristine knee high socks and boots were scuffed and muddy. Knees were torn and the tanktop with the zipped waistcoat had seen better days, spattered with blood and mud. About her neck was a long scarf that ended in tatters. The youthful face of Yuffie was marked with vacancy and sometimes, madness – the skin burned in places and the nose recently broken, still bloodied; her hair was longer and wildly ruffled with twigs and dirt, but the eyes of Yuffie glowed an eerie grey-silver, wide and childlike.

"I thought it would be nice to come in style," Tifa joked, getting to her knees, then onto her feet crouching. A quick look about her identified which materia had fallen where. She made a quick mental map of where to dash, then took in her surroundings as quickly. The area where she and Yuffie were stood was a plateau of rock with various stalagmites and stalactites. The teeth of the cavern glittered with hidden veins of precious metals and gems, and provided plenty of cover. On one side was the river of pure Lifestream energy. Behind, towards the back, was a darker area, the way out of this strange place. "You know how I can be, looks like I lost my balance a little. Not quite the ten point landing huh?"

"Not really," Yuffie laughed again, it was a shattering kind of sound.

"Well... Yuffie... how are you doing?"

"Doing?" The ninja peered at her, "Huh, you're not who I thought it was going to be."

"Isn't that a terrible disappointment." Tifa watched her carefully.

"Is she coming?"

"Of course she will be, you know how Aerith is."

"Yes, of course," Yuffie's face twisted with some kind of internal agony, turning her back on Tifa briefly. "What? No... she'll come, of course she will. Mom, just wait... just wait a little longer... like the moon on a lake, I am waiting..." and broke off into laughter.

Tifa's hair on the nape of her neck made every effort in concert to stand on end and attempt to crawl off her skin. Shivering, she carefully scraped up the close by materia and began to click them as quickly into place on her gloves as she could, eyeing the intricate heart design on the back of her hands, the vicious ridges of metal. Fire materia, absorb materia, health materia and a sense materia.

_...People throw things away..._

She smiled to herself, continuing to watch as Yuffie argued with herself and the air around her. It was fairly obvious to Tifa that Yuffie was more than simply unbalanced. It was worse than schizophrenia, it was if there was an outside force crushing down on the personality that Tifa knew from the young woman. Brushing her hands on her knees, she cradled her side, carefully pacing around a little bit to get a feel of the footing on the floor.

"Tifa," Yuffie said suddenly, "I'm going to die down here."

"That's not true, Yuffie, we're going to make things all better." Tifa clenched her fist, "That's what Aerith is coming here to do, right?"

"Yes... yes..." Yuffie bowed her head, back still to Tifa, "But you're not here for that are you?"

Tifa chose that moment to launch herself, muscles in her legs bracing as she sprang into action. Two quick steps and her right hand was engulfed in flames as she leaped into Yuffie. The ninja girl was caught turning and the plated fist struck her hard across the cheek, snapping her head back and staggering her. Tifa came to a skidding stop.

Yuffie clamped a hand to her bleeding cheek, shaking her head and training her oddly glowing eyes on Tifa, "That's right, you're not here for that at all, you're here to kill me."

Tifa just smiled tightly.

* * *

"_She was everything to me, how could I just let her walk away?"_

Concentrating was proving difficult. She relied on Vincent in the lead to keep them from falling into direct danger, clutching onto Cloud and Cid when she stumbled along behind them. But she wasn't the only one.

"These ghosts can kiss my ass," Cid snarled, "Don't they have better things to be doing?"

"I'm more interested in what they're saying," Cloud retorted, "Haven't you been listening to them? It's quite sad."

"What's quite sad is your rambling boy."

Aerith blinked as much as she could. Sometimes people would appear around them as they walked down the corridor, whispering and talking, bowing to things that weren't there, walking through the walls, down or up through the floor or ceiling. It was entirely strange. It was the first time the entire group had been witness to these images, but Aerith wasn't a stranger to them at all. It had been a while since she'd seen her first true ghost, but she recalled it easily enough.

_He was a man of average height with a face made of kindness. His eyes were so sad, as he came over to where she turning over a patch of dirt in her green smock. She stopped, holding up the little trowel and trying to see him a little more clearly._

"_Hey mister," she said gravely, "I can see the sunshine through you."_

_He laughed, but it was a wispy kind of sound, the sound of a funfair from a distant wind. "Oh can you now?"_

"_Mmmhmmm," she nodded her head._

"_You are so beautiful, Elmyra and I wanted children so much."_

"_Do you know my mom?" She looked at him seriously, "I mean, she's not my real mom but my new mom, she's taking care of me. I love her, very much. So do you, don't you?"_

"_Yes," the man said, kneeling next to her, "I loved her with all my heart, and will continue to do so."_

"_Are you going away?"_

"_You should know, little Aerith, you have the magic in you," a transparent finger touched her chest, over her heart, "Here. You know it's true. You can feel it when you speak, when you laugh or smile. I will return to the Lifestream and you will be happy here. Grow lots of flowers, make people happy. Tell Elmyra I love her. I cannot go to her, but you can. I'm really sorry..." He was crying._

_Aerith was unsure what she should do, so she just nodded, "Sure. I guess you'd have been my daddy then. I'll take care of her."_

"_Thank you..." and he was gone. Just like that. As young as she was, Aerith knew immediately he had been a ghost, a spirit of someone her foster mother loved deeply; her husband, far away in a war that he hadn't cared for. He hadn't made it home. She brushed the dirt from her knees, and with a flower in hand, decided to go home and be with Elmyra, she'd need all the comfort she could get right now..._

"I wonder," she said softly, "What are they looking for around here?"

"Aerith," Cloud asked, "Is this what it's like for you?"

She nodded, despite the darkness they were in, adding vocally, "Yes. They visit sometimes, with wishes and words that never had the chance to be said otherwise. I take them and calm them, before they can move on."

"Move on?"

"To the Lifestream, to a new beginning."

"Well, I'm sure that's all well but it's so cree-!"

There was air and light. She lurched forward, having been putting some of her weight on Cloud's shoulder. The floor opened up into a sort of dim light and dust. Cid's arm was about her waist, the pilot having prevented her from falling into the hole. Out of the dust she could just make out the sprawling figures of Cloud and Vincent.

"Cloud! Vincent!" she cried out.

It looked like an underground laboratory of some sort, with panels and boards, the type you can wipe on and wipe off with special pens. There were projector units, cages and tables and desks stacked with research notes, some strewn onto the floor with the pairs ungraceful entrance from the ceiling high above the laboratory. She coughed, "Guys!"

"It's alright, we're okay," Vincent said, "Keep going, we'll find a way to meet up."

"But Faben'll be around here too," She called down.

"Then we'll just have to kick him about a bit before we meet up," Cloud sounded overconfident, as usual. She smiled. "Get going, Tifa's waiting."

Tifa.

"Right!" She replied, "Don't be late!"

Cid was looking at her as she pulled back from leaning over the new opening in the floor. She huffed and wiped her face, holding onto her stick tightly as if it would prevent her from simply collapsing out of fright. Where they were right now had been a long expanse of corridor, running between and around the laboratories where a lot of the Deepground research had been done. To the other side of where they had been walking towards was an off-shoot corridor, running away from the hole and more towards the ground with a downward run to it.

"That way," she said.

"Yeah. You okay?"

Aerith nodded, then retorted with as much tartness as she could manage, "And you, Grandpa?"

Cid gave her a scowl, his way of appreciating humour, "Coping."

"Besides, she's down this way," Aerith murmured. It was true, she could feel her, like a heartbeat leading her deeper in. It was warm and consistent, a constant in her mind. It filled her with love, with hope and banished her dread for the moment she concentrated on it. "I can feel her, like the earth under my feet."

"Feel her, huh?"

"She's there, she's waiting... and all I have to do is go to her side." Aerith closed her eyes, then looked across at Cid, "I know, it sounds mad, it might even be mad but..."

"Tifa is there, right? So stop lolly-gagging," Cid brushed past her with a snort, "I'll go first, age before beauty. Plus, can't ever tell if that floor is gonna give up the ghost again – not you!" he snapped to one of the apparitions that moved out of the wall in front of him then turned and went back through the wall. He started off down that new route, huffing and grumbling to himself. She hid a smile.

She enjoyed his no- nonsense personality and his easy way of dealing with the strange things about her that tended to put so many off. That was probably why she would choose him when...

"Are you coming or what!"

"Sorry!" She gave herself a little shake, and with a last glance at the new opening, ran as best she could down the off-shoot corridor after Cid, feeling the darkness close back in around her. But the thrum of a steady heart was that which kept her moving and urging him onward. She was there... she was there!

* * *

They'd stood like this, waiting for the other to move for too long since Tifa had tried to break Yuffie's cheekbone with her fist, a feat that had gone unrewarded. Yuffie just looked bruised, and a little worn, but that was all. Those silver-ice eyes were latched onto her with the same intensity that an eagle might stare down at a mouse with, yum, dinner.

"How old were you," Tifa said softly, "When you knew that you were different?"

"How old... I was a kid. I was barely more than out of playing with dolls to keep my elders happy, to keep me out of trouble. I knew before I wept at the feet of the Da Chao, I knew before I attended clinic with my mother. I could see the seasons move and see the people and world move with them." Yuffie smiled, it was completely at odds with her intense stare; the smile was so sad and so sweet. "I saw the tide of war, I saw it break and fall upon us all. I saw sand and stone, brick and mortar, trees bent beneath the rage of a faceless enemy. I swore..."

"What, to take revenge?"

"Yes! ...No..." Yuffie gripped her head, "No, it wasn't like that. Not at first. I was so angry, I was so helpless and so angry. Why her? Why did it have to be her? Why did I have to be alone?"

"Who?"

"Momma..." Yuffie's eyes glazed briefly.

Tifa took this as her chance, a second chance. She snapped forward three spaces, threatening Yuffie's midriff with a foot, then twirling around and adding a second kick to the space where the ninjas head had been a moment before. Tifa back flipped as two kunai slammed into the dirt where she had been, one chopping into the ground with such intensity that it cracked stone. Hurrying, she flung herself behind a pillar of rock as the flash of lightning roared past where she had been.

"Momma died," Yuffie's voice said, from the shadows above her. "Momma left. She didn't tell me what I was to do, if there were others like me. I knew I would be alone, one way or another. I swore I wouldn't do it, but I broke my most precious promise..."

"Promise? Just one?" Tifa adjusted the materia on her glove, crawling to peer around the side of rock outcropping. "You broke promises to a lot of people."

"This one mattered!" Yuffie appeared out of the inky shadows next to where Tifa was with a flying elbow that sent her slamming into the ground. As her face skidded across the stone, Tifa grabbed at one of the kunai, wrenching it free and throwing it back at Yuffie. It caught in her cloak and the force took Yuffie with it, back into shadows that seemed to eat her up.

Tifa came to her feet, rubbing her face to clear blood from clotting her eye. Using shadows to move about was a very neat trick indeed, probably an enhanced one of those that were taught to ninja in the Kisaragi clan. "Don't we matter, Yuffie?"

"You did! You did once!" Yuffie's voice sounded strangled, there was weeping involved. Self torture was the worst kind, Tifa knew that. Her heart weighed heavy with sympathy, once she had been as despicable as Yuffie was now, drowning in that hate and fear, weighed down by everything she had no control over in life and left adrift, reaching out to anything to stop herself from drowning. "You all mattered to me, I loved you all – my family, my new family..."

"We love you too Yuffi-"

"NO!" The shriek almost burst her eardrums, a deafening wave of sonic vibrations that made her stumble backwards and lose her balance. Yuffie was there in an instant, weight pushing down atop her as they fell, hands gripping Tifa's hair. "No, then why did you come to kill me! WHY!"

Tifa pushed her feet out as she landed. It launched Yuffie overhead, but her hands, still entangled in Tifa's dark locks ripped them out. Tifa screamed in pain as the ninja continued her flight, turning over just in time to get a fist from the brunette fighter directly to her face. Yuffie continued being thrown backwards, tottering on the edge of the plateau.

"I came to kill you, because Aerith won't. Because I love her enough to do the shit she doesn't need to dirty her hands with," Tifa punched out again, blood streaming down the sides of her face. "Because-"

Yuffie caught her hand and brought her knee up to Tifa's middle. It slammed into her ribs and she could feel them creak in agony, the pain shooting up through her spine and jamming her teeth together against a moan. She would not give Yuffie the satisfaction of hearing her pain. The next blow she took as well, to the kidneys, doubling over, but the third one she was ready for and twisted Yuffie's arm, bending it to force the tightly held kunai from quickly numbing fingers. "I said... Because I love you enough to do it too."

Yuffie sobbed, "Help me, please... please... just DIE!"

The force of the lightning bolt threw her away from the plateau edge and rolling, side over side, to a stop by a collection of rock formations. Quivering, Tifa laid there a moment, watching Yuffie from that distance. Her magic was so strong, it was stronger than anything Tifa had ever known previously from the ninja. "Yuffie," she whispered.

* * *

"Just a bunch of crap," Cloud muttered, kicking at the broken elevator doors.

Vincent was staring up at the open ceiling. Cloud wandered over and nudged the taller man, "Unless you have a ladder hidden in your scarf, we're not getting up there."

"No, maybe not, but I can't think of another way out of here."

Cloud sighed, this wasn't going at any shape of heroic that he had imagined. He was thought that they'd all end up there, fighting together for the sake of their world, one more time, one more chance. He'd have been able to do it this time, with a heart healed and a clear view of what his future could possibly be. Instead he was stuck in a dusty old lab next to the worlds more stoic man. There had to be somewhere else.

Leaving Vincent to his musings, Cloud began to stamp about through the lab, testing the floor as he went. "So, Vincent..."

"Hmm?"

"...when did you first fall in love with her?"

"When did you?"

Cloud glanced at the man, who looked lost in a serious line of thinking, staring intently back. Cloud shrugged a little, "I'd love to say it was the moment I met her, but I think it was before that. Zack would talk of her, so much, so often. This wonderful girl back home, the one he loved so much, he couldn't wait to see her, just wait til I did..."

Zack.

Wasn't it funny, his eyes filling up with tears. "It felt like, I'd traded my best friend for the best girl in the world, and she didn't even love me the way I did her. I'm fine, right now, as I am. I love her, as she is. One day, I'll find someone else, but knowing she is safe and happy, that's love too. I can bear that..." He laughed, "Besides, Zack would crawl out of his... his grave... if he thought..."

"I loved her when she said she would never leave me."

Cloud stared at Vincent, tears fresh on his cheeks. The Turk was looking at his hands, in a way that suggested he was recalling what Yuffie had done or said. "Is that so?"

"She clung hard to me, she said she would bring me back to myself, that I could never be alone again." Vincent smiled and it was all the Soldier could do not to gape. "She was adamant that nothing about me could scare her off, not the monster inside of me, not the monster I could grow into being. I was scared that I could never return that feeling, scared that it was a silly infatuation. But years, they came and went and there she was, by my side no matter how hard I tried to make myself hateful or to run her off with impossible takes or speaking to her father about her arranged marriage... nothing... so I thought, that I could love her. I thought that she could love me..." his hands closed tightly, "And I am in the danger of making the same mistake again, losing her to Jenova... like I did..."

"Vincent..." Cloud swallowed, "No, it won't happen."

"You don't know that it won't."

"That's true but, I know how you feel about her, I know that you care about her, isn't that enough? Shouldn't that help you? She forgives you, she whole heartedly forgives you..."

_Forgiven? For what...?_

"... and you can't even begin to understand, what a weight that is off your chest and off your shoulders, if you let yourself believe in it, if you let yourself grasp it." Cloud clenched his jaw, realising he was working up a temper, "...if those we love can accept us, why cant we?"

"I didn't think of it like that."

"It's okay, I had time to... to think." Cloud turned away from him and began picking through the wreckage of the ceiling, pulling pieces of rock away to look beneath them. Vincent was quiet as he tried to absorb what had been said, a silence that Cloud was grateful for, because it let him concentrate too on the task at hand.

"Hey, Vincent," he called. "I think I found something."

"What is it?"

Cloud stepped away, hauling the last piece out. It was a circular indent in the floor, like an escape hatch to a lower level. It even had a working handle, the twist kind that could be opened without a power source. "A shiny golden wire of hope."

"What?" Vincent looked at him blankly, "...it's an escape hatch not a wire."

Cloud laughed, "It doesn't matter."

* * *

_I was so afraid of the sky, once upon a time, but now as deep down as I am, hidden or maybe trapped like a rat in a maze, I find myself longing for it, the wide clear and open sky. I miss what he said he would give me, I miss it._

"It seems like we've been walking for hours," Cid said to her, but without the usual bite or volume. It was a whisper, scared and fluttering as her heart that touched her ears. "Even 'they' haven't shown up any longer."

The visions had vanished the deeper they had gone into the world, closer to the Lifestream. Now, what Cid heard as silence, she heard, or more precisely felt, as a burgeoning of power, a swelling in her chest and up her spine, like molten gold filling her head and begging to be used. She had always known that as a Cetra her power within and even with the Lifestream was incredible and without par, but this close, she felt tingling and alive, as if a constant but tiny electric current was running through her, to the ground and air and to the person by her side.

Perhaps it was because of this that she was the first to notice.

"Cid," she said warningly.

"Come on, it can't be much longer."

Aerith grabbed his arm, "No, Cid... wait..."

She caught a flash of it in the darkness, vivid blue. It was there, so close, that her heart almost burst. Only this time, she knew better than to call out. Eyes, looking at her, pleading silently. They came towards her at a hurried pace.

"Zack..." she breathed.

"Zack!" Cid repeated, staring as the blue eyes came closer. He tried to shield her heroically with his body, hands grappling with the shaft of his pole-arm. "What.. the..."

The light attacked to his captain jacket's pocket shone on the fur of the wolf who came to a slow trot, panting. The fur was silver grey, but spiked in that familiar way and on the cheek... She reached a hand out past Cid, and touched that scar. "How..."

The wolf turned it's head back around, staring into the night behind that somehow seemed alive, bulging and furious. It was coming towards them. "Aerith?" Cid said, "Get down!"

It shot out as a heavy timber trunk, hitting the pole-arm square on the shaft, forcing it into Cid's chest. In turn, with the force of the blow, Cid was knocked backwards off his feet and into her, she then also falling backwards with Cid atop her, winding her. To his credit, the pilot hurriedly got up and crouched low, holding the pole-arm steady. She grasped about for her Princess Guard, only finding it when the Wolf-Zack brought it to her.

"_You haven't got any less clumsy, Aerith."_

She smiled, accepting it back from his mouth. "Zack... Cid?"

"...you know what," Cid snarled, "I am getting way too old for this god damn shit..."

"Well, well, well..." the voice slithered, the darkness sucking back away from the figure who stepped out of it. Half man, half monster, his face was contorted, cruel and inhumane. He was bleeding from various wounds on his body, bearing resemblance to bite marks, chunks taken clean out of him. She didn't scream. This time something else filled her entirely. Panic. She had killed him, she felt it... she felt the blood and the life pour out of him... "I guess, second time is always a charm, isn't that right, Honoured Daughter?"

She tried to keep her voice calm, "Doctor."


	22. Part Twenty Two: Sacrifice

**:: Heart Less Love ::**

I am a member of a team, and I rely on the team, I defer to it and sacrifice  
for it, because the team, not the individual, is the ultimate champion.  
Mia Hamm

**Part Twenty-Two: Sacrifice**

* * *

_Let us go from this place_

_And seek the lonely world again_

_Where love might flourish_

_And life be worth living and_

_Be it bearable for as long_

_As you are here by my side..._

* * *

Aerith got to her feet behind Cid, staring at the form of Faben with her heart somewhere in her throat now, fluttering anxiously. The pilot, older as he was, remained firm and steadfast before her, as a wall between them. It was a stance that said he would always place himself between her and danger. Next to him was the burly form of Zack as a wolf, hackles raised and poised to jump for the throat of the man-monster who stood before them.

"Run," Cid hissed at her.

"What!" She whispered back in disbelief.

"You said it yourself, Tifa is down that way, where that thing came from right. You make a run for it, you go and get her and save her from being a complete idiot." Cid reached into his top pocket, pulling out a pack of smokes. With a backward glance that said 'don't ruin my moment' he took one out and put it between his teeth. "But first, got a light?"

"This is stupid, Cid, really stupid," she snapped her fingers together, sparks flying from the mastered green materia she wore. "This will end in you getting yourself killed and do you have any idea how much a funeral costs?"

The man just laughed! "Aerith, you always make me smile. Now go."

"_He is right, Aerith."_

She looked down at the wolf, as he spoke directly into her mind, his long tongue hanging out. She could nearly see him, as he was, that cocky little smile, that wonderful way he had of holding his head. Her trust, she had always given him it completely. He had always been there with her, sometimes unseen and always unshakeable. "Zack, you too?"

"_I came here to be Tifa's protector, to do for you what you could not. But now she is lost and alone, she is frightened, can't you feel it? I know you can, that heartbeat in your mind. I held this monster off, from following her. We'll distract him. Cid is a good man, I remember him from the space project. Trust in us."_

"Alright," she said, gathering up her skirts in one hand, "...Don't die. That's a … a... g... god-damned order!"

Cid laughed again and even Zack did, as she began to cry. It was too much, this was too much! She began her run, to speed past Faben, expending her magic to do so. Time slowed, so that she zipped past him. She couldn't say to which the magic effect had occurred, but she was past him, listening to the cries of Cid, taunting the monster as she left them behind.

"Come on gutless wonder, let's see how pretty your intestines are!"

_Cid... the big brother... I wanted..._

She just ran harder.

* * *

Vincent's long expression said it all.

Cloud just chuckled. Well it seemed about as likely as everything that had happened so far. After they had unearthed the hatch, they'd gone down and through the metal corridors, down stairs and through more work spaces and training yards and an inactive reactor to where they were now, some kind of kennel with glowing rocks and another open tunnel leading down into rocks rather than clinical cold metal.

"Dogs. Really."

"Bandersnatches." Cloud giggled a touch, earning him a look of ire. Hey, he couldn't help it that the name was hilarious, and he sometimes had the mentality of a kid barely in high school. Coughing to cover it up, he lifted the sword from his back, freeing it from the magnetic sheath. "But really, did you expect this?"

"I have begun to give up expecting anything."

"That might not be a bad way to go about. Look out!"

Cloud ducked backward as one of the freed dogs came ripping for his head with fearsome looking claws, jaws hung with spittle. Vincent's pistol blast took the throat out of the dog, tossing it aside. Cloud scrambled back onto his feet, and turned about, surprised to see two behind them. That made a total of five dogs, well, four, one laid on the floor with blood straining from the remains of it's neck.

"Let's make quick work of this."

The blond soldier nodded, hefting his sword, "Gotcha. Come on!" He swung at the closest, blade sending sparks from the metal furniture that it swung through, cutting cleanly. The further dog leaped, and Cloud put his hand up, catching the dog on it's underbelly, fingertips grazing along the fur. He focused his will on the materia in his gauntlet, ice crawling up from his hand and latching onto the cells of the dog. It fell from the heigh, shattering the midriff on the floor. It kept twitching and trying to move, but as the magic wore off and the ice thawed, it soon slowed and stopped.

Cloud swung around, jumping over the table as the closer dog snapped at his heels and overturned the desk onto it. Vincent stepped over it, moving backwards with a deft leaping motion. As he moved, the scarf seemed to flutter as if it were alive, bullets scorching through it and hitting the dog dancing up over the desk, another one shooting directly through the desk, trailing a strain of poison, the corresponding green orb of materia slotted into his weapon.

He glanced back as the last dog was jumping, trying to reload his gun as quickly as he could, instead lashing out with his leg. The dog was kicked sideways, and Cloud, ready for it with sword in hand, clove it neatly into two.

"Well... that was short, and sweet."

"Mmm," Vincent looked up. "Maybe not."

"Huh?" Cloud said, also looking up as the floor gave way above them. Creatures crashed down atop them, as well as rock and rubble, dust choking up the air. Cloud felt heavy objects squirming around, roaring and swearing and something hot splashing against his face. He fought for purchase in the dust and rubble, half swimming his way to clearance on the other side of the pile of bodies and junk, seeing what it was for the first time.

Cid was shoving Vincent off him, covered in deep gashes and dirt. Before the two rose a monster that had undeniable Jenova-ish traits about it. Cloud remembered fighting Jenova well enough on many occasions to say that the tentacles alone were enough to leave him with nightmares. On the other side of the monster, snapping and snarling, limping vaguely as it circled was a wolf with shocking blue eyes, and a ruffled fur about the head... and a scar...

"Zack!" He called, astonished.

The wolf dipped it's head briefly, then lunged at the monster from behind, making it spin and roar. The wolf came rushing away from harm, muzzle dripping blood and lips pulled back in a snarl, the kind of snarl that said 'these teeth are not for show'.

Cloud picked up his sword, moving to where Vincent was, then looking up at Cid. "Where's Aerith?"

"She went ahead to get Tifa, she can help hold Yuffie down whilst we get rid of this freak." Cid scraped blood from a cut in his forehead, "Faben's gotten a fair bit uglier, don't you think Cloud?"

"Faben?" Cloud frowned; that would make sense, Jenova cells were strange, they mimicked and used magic in ways that science had been unable to completely unravel, even by the time that Soldiers were being experimented on, like Sephiroth. "I see, Vincent, can you stand?"

Vincent pushed hands off him, frowning, "Yes. But I suppose, given all this, we have to go all out."

Cloud nodded, "I don't see any other way, Cid?"

"Do I fuckin' look like an instruction manual, boy!"

"That's your answer, Vincent."

The tall, quiet man nodded, lifting his scarf to cover his face, "Then, I suggest you get back."

"Huh?" was about all Cid had time to say, before Cloud drove his arm about his neck and dragged him a good distance back, Vincent would need some room. "Oh shit no..."

The transformation was painful, or so it looked to Cloud's eyes. Vincent bent double, holding his middle and screeching, then the skin began to tear, magic rippling through it. Then came that sense of fear that broke bones to marrow and chilled hearts to stopping. Cloud clutched Cid as much as the pilot clutched back, watching the scene with horrified expressions. The wings unfolded first, exploding from his back and showering blood behind him. Next, the scarf curled up towards his hair, turning into a demonic half mask. His skin and rippling, folding into stronger muscles as the exo-skeleton formed over soft tissues. With a final roar of pain, Chaos stood where Vincent had moments before, the tatters of a suit clinging to the legs.

"Oh man, he liked that suit," was all Cid could say, trying to work moisture into his mouth.

Cloud nodded agreement, getting up from behind the overturned desk and retrieving his sword, feeling the comforting weight in his hands. He gave Chaos a wary look, receiving one in turn, with those demon eyes glowing a grisly red. "You know how we do this," he said to him.

Chaos merely hitched a corner of one lip.

"Alright then... tick tock, time's up Doc," Cloud said, starting his run towards the monster, only to get caught by the thick arm which launched him high overhead. As he was suspended mid air for a moment, he saw Vincent start to move with the shadows and brimstone, ducking and weaving about the monster, peppering him with bullets and firing off blasts of magic coloured a dense red and white.

Cid, using Vincent as a distraction, launched a high jump down the left side of Faben, digging his pole-arm in deep. The monster shrugged Cid off, sending him clattering through the empty cages. Cloud started to come down, and landed, foot on the top of the pole-arm. His added weight was enough to drive the sharp end of it through skin and muscle, shearing the trunk arm in two down to the hand, where he kicked as he twisted, sending the pole-arm flying in the direction of Cid who was just starting to sit upright. It jammed, quivering in the wall next to him, making him curse.

Cloud gained his footing again, moving to swing his sword – the next few blows were standard, but as it spun to hit him away again, Zack was there, ripping out an eye. It howled and threw the wolf away from him, this time the impact with a wall was loud, the sound of someone sliding down it to come to a rest.

Chaos zipped in close, neat shots severing the spinal cord and severely restricting the motion that Faben had. When the arm claws out for Chaos, it was avoided with a neat ducking and twist, but the wing tip had been caught and with a vicious twist, Cloud could hear the bone snapping and twisting.

Desperate to help him friend, he moved up and plunged his sword into the soft tissue of the left side, angling up as much as he could. He tried to begin the motions for the cross-slash manoeuvre that he'd known for what seemed like most of his life by now. As he was about to complete the third motion, something poured over him from above, scalding his eyes and filling his mouth. He staggered away, coughing and spitting out the poison as quickly as he could, scrambling to get to his curative materia. The coolness hit, soothing the poisonous sting.

The monster's attention was back on Chaos, the other wing was now coming off and as the final twist was about to be applied, the monster stopped moving. The arrow, or rather, pole-arm, was sticking directly through the creature's head, glistening with the magic of air, traces of it falling away and dispersing, a little like particles of dust seen through a sunbeam.

Cid huffed, as the monster collapsed, unmoving. "I vote, we fuckin' barbecue that bastard this time, all in favour, don't bother to raise your god damned hands." He threw his small hip flask, lit, at the body of the monster. It exploded in flames, screams no voice could ever make tearing the air.

"Holy gaia," Cloud muttered, then noticed Vincent had shifted back to his human form and was lying still, "Vincent!"

He rushed over, pulling the scarf up so he could see the long rake marks in his back and the blood that oozed freely. "Oh shit, Cid... come give me a hand," he shouted, as he dragged Vincent from the fire. The pilot limped over and together they hauled the unconscious man onto a desk, sweeping old papers and rotting food away to do so. "Bandage him with his scarf, I'll use my materia... I don't know though, he's lost a lot of blood." Cloud fumbled with the materia and Cid set to work binding the wounds. Both were so busy that neither heard the footsteps behind them.

"_You know, a real hero could handle this," _the voice said.

Cloud dropped the materia, it rolled away under papers. The voice froze him where he was stood, tears forming in his eyes and stinging his throat. Cid too, had stopped moving, staring at Cloud's face.

_He wasn't breathing right. Addled as he was, he knew that dammit, he knew that._

_But it didn't matter right now, as the sword was pushed into his hands, with a force that as strong as love, with care that folded his numbed fingers over the hilt. "Live... you'll be my... living legacy..."_

"_I'll be..."_

"_My honour, my dreams..." His friend was smiling. Cloud had envied a smile so free of worries or care. He had wanted to be like this man, he had always wanted to be by his side, to see each day in and laugh together with him. "...they're...yours now..."_

"_Zack..." he said, staring at the man who passed away, letting out his final breath. The smile was still there. He was gone, and all Cloud had done was watch him slip quietly away. It was painful, too painful to bear. "...rest...well..."_

"I'm getting there," Cloud said stiffly, then frowned, "...if I hadn't been playing 'find the materia' of course."

"_You can laugh now, and joke. That's a good thing, I was worried, really worried. You're not like other people, Cloud, you know that? Here, just this once and don't tell Aerith, she'll just get upset about rules or that stuff. Lucky I'm just a dumb Soldier, eh?" _A hand made of sunlight and dust moved past Cloud's frozen side to touch the back of Vincent. The blood seemed to roll back into the rake-like wounds and close. Then he coughed.

"Ugh..." Vincent said, "I feel rough."

Cid laughed, slapping Vincent on the back, "God be damned Vampire," but it had none of the usual sting in it.

Cloud gritted his teeth and turned about.

Zack was almost exactly as he remembered him being. Tall, handsome with that star shaped scar and dark hair, spiked diffidently about his oval-shaped face with those brilliant blue eyes. The smile too, cheerful and cheeky. _"Hey, country boy."_

"Zack." Cloud smiled, one that felt unforced. He'd saved them up, cut off for so long. Even if this moment didn't last, it was good enough. "How am I doing?"

"_Not bad, I'd say a B plus. But right now, they need you. I can't go further, not yet. The materia blocks my way... hurry to them, down that way." _Zack pointed, towards the rock-corridor that led down and out of the kennels. They all looked, but when they looked back, Zack had already gone.

"...B plus my ass," Cid snorted, "You can't help that you're a blockhead, Cloud."

"Cid, don't you have some other lives to ruin?" Cloud grinned, taking Vincent's arm as he stood groggily. Cid took the other arm, and between them, they began walking towards the corridor and away from the smouldering, vanishing mess of what had been the only other active scion of Jenova.

* * *

Her lungs burned for oxygen but she didn't slow, not until the green glow and her alert senses told her that she was finally there, close to the materia and the Lifestream. She slowed her running and came out into the open, where she saw Tifa on her back, struggling with the point of one of Yuffie's fuuma shuriken as the slighter, smaller woman attempted to force it through the bloodied and battered Tifa.

"Stop it," she cried.

Yuffie stopped what she was doing, and even Tifa stared at her, moving the point of the shuriken so it slammed into the floor rather than her head. The point was driven deep enough that it would take some strength to remove it, but neither could Tifa move as Yuffie's foot was squarely on her ribs. Aerith looked between the two, then shook her head.

"Yuffie, stop this nonsense right now."

"Aerith," Yuffie said, then her face contorted with rage. "Cetra!"

Thanks to her sharpened senses, she had already erected the magical barrier long before the projectiles came flying for her, kunai, rocks, shards of the fuuma, they all rebounded off the magic. Aerith stayed as calm as she could, and struck back with her magic, pushing air against Yuffie and weaving the seals for her sealing technique. Yuffie cried out, then became as still as stone.

"It won't last," Aerith said, hurrying towards Tifa, and dragging her out from under the foot. The martial artist hung on, as she herded towards a pile of rocks, where Aerith wove her barrier the best that she could, to protect them.

"Thank god, I think I was almost toast," Tifa chuckled.

The slap had been intended, Aerith meant to do it. Perhaps not so full armed, but it was completely deserved. Tifa's head snapped a little when it was applied, but the wine coloured eyes just looked at her sadly, full up with love and regret. "You idiot," Aerith fumed, "You left me, you said you wouldn't!"

"Maybe," Tifa chuckled again, "But one of us was going to, right?"

Aerith frowned, lowering her hands, "That's true."

"Maybe I just decided to pre-empt your attempts at further martyrdom. No one likes a smart ass, sweetheart," Tifa rubbed her ribs. "But, this has been difficult. I thought I could protect you..."

"Let me heal you," Aerith said, moving her hands along her lovers' skin, touching the bruises and coaxing the pain out from them. She woven skin and muscle back together, sewed and stitched bones and bleeding and exerted as much of her magic as she could afford to divert from the shield, which had already begun to withstand the deluge of projectiles, both magical and physical. As her hands came to where the hair had been ripped from Tifa's scalp, she stopped. Tifa had taken her hands, and moved them to cup the sides of her face, her eyes closed as she nestled into them.

"I love you."

"Tifa, I love you too."

"You are everything to me Aerith." The eyes opened a little, to look at her from behind sooty lashes, "You saved me, you're my world. I'd do anything for you, what else could you possibly need? You're so powerful, so beautiful, so wise and kind... and all I can do is be a shield, all I can do is stand in your shadow and pray I can be of use to you someday."

"No, you're wrong, Tifa, you're so wrong." Aerith sobbed, pressing her forehead to Tifa's, tears running down her cheeks, "You don't get it, you really don't get it. I remember, everything. Everything. From the smallest touch, to the slightest smile. To how you raise your arms overhead in bed, to how when you play the piano you are lost in another world made of music and magic, the kind I can't make. Tifa, you're so wrong..."

"How am I wrong?"

"Tifa I," she stopped, part of the shield had vanished. "Look out!" she cried, moving to push Tifa from the way as chunks of rocks shattered from overhead.

There was a hand on the back of her dress, hauling her out and chucking her with force across the room, so hard that she felt herself bounce, hitting small rocks on her spine as she went. Agonsy raced up her nerves, and she struggled to get to her feet.

Yuffie was breathing hard now. "Aerith... why won't you save me?"

"I'm trying to, Yuffie please believe me, I'm trying to!"

"No, no, no no no noooooo," Yuffie pressed hands to her head, "Why can't I make any sense, why when you are there... why..."

"Do you remember the day?" Aerith said slowly, picking up her Princess Guard. Tifa had gotten to her feet and was hiding in ambush behind the rocks, a shorter distance from Yuffie. "Don't you?"

"Yes," it was a hissing sigh, coupled with pain. As the ninja relaxed her hands on her head, Aerith could see the chunk of materia held there. Aerith wasn't sure why, but the materia was showing odd signs of strain, veins of white threading through it. "I remember it. You watched me, as I tried to hide it. You've always been watching me."

"Yes, I have."

"You wanted me to be like you, you wanted... to stop being alone," Yuffie wept.

Aerith nodded, "No one wants to be alone, in this life. No one. That materia, it's not good."

"But mother... mother..."

"Shall I tell you a story, about Jenova?" Aerith smiled, moving towards Yuffie, focused on the materia as the ninja seemed to shrink back from her, "She was a woman, who came from a different world. A woman, whose race were unable to withstand certain radiations. They caused madness, terrible madness. However, this woman who had come to chase this madness down by it's call and destroy met a man, and fell in love. Like all good love stories, they had children and they were happy. The sister of the man was wary of Jenova, of the power she could project if she got too close to the black materia. But years of low grade exposure drove her mad, mad enough to kill thousands, to destroy parts of the world."

"Yes... yes..." Yuffie moaned, "I know..."

"But, when it came down to it, the sister who had been so suspicious of Jenova tried to pacify her at the Northern Crater, the Knowlespole, where Jenova had opened a massive wound on the world. However, it was not K'listo that brought her to a halt. It was her husband, Arkilles. Because he loved her."

"Why... why? Why destroy that which you love?"

"Because you cannot bear to see it grow worse. Because remembering the beauty of how someone was is more preferable to what comes after..." Aerith looked sad, "Like Kasumi."

Yuffie's head came up, eyes wide. "K...Kasumi... Mom..."

"She is there, you know." Aerith touched her heart, "She lives inside of you still. You might hear the voice of Jenova, but your mom, she is still the voice of the Cetra, she is still inside you, protecting you and loving you, like she always has."

"_...run Aerith... run..."_

_Her mother gasped for on the steps, collapsing forward and holding her chest. A woman came from the crowd, kind and sweet and held her as she wept, trying to tug her dying mother along with her. She couldn't be without her._

"_Take care of... Aerith... please..." her mother pleaded with the woman, who nodded._

_But to her, she whispered, "I'll be with you... one day... when you know where to look, you will find me... Aerith..."_

"Mom..." Yuffie's face was suddenly clear. "That's right, I swore..."

Just as she thought she'd finally gotten through to her, Aerith moved to take the materia off Yuffie. However, in a split second veins of black rushed up Yuffie's arm, and she hurled the fuuma shuriken right at her. Aerith closed her eyes, waiting for impact. But there was none, yet she heard the thud. Perhaps her mind was numbed to being stabbed, she reasoned as she opened her eyes.

Instead, she was face to face with Tifa who smiled at her. "Hey."

"Hey?" Aerith said in confusion.

"...rain check then... on that... celebrating thing..." Tifa sighed, stumbling to her knees. Aerith clutched at her, then realised in horror what had happened. The shuriken was stood out from Tifa's back, embedded deeply. Blood had stained the lower half of Tifa's shirt and legs, and Aerith's dress. It was embedded so deep that the point of it had been driven out of the breastbone, the other side of the entry point. Tifa's eyes were wide open, glazed and that smile frozen, blood trickling from one corner of her mouth.

Yuffie was frozen, staring in horror.

Aerith collapsed to her knees, holding Tifa. It began before she knew it, a thin wail that came from her throat, then throbbed into full force, ringing out, tearing out. It shattered off the rocks, it made Yuffie drop the materia and cover her ears, eyes wide and staring, tears running down her cheeks. It was enough that when the three bantering heroes came out of the dark corridor on the opposing side to the river of the Lifestream all they could do was stop dead, seeing Aerith in a pool of blood, holding onto the still body of Tifa Lockhart, and screaming like the world should stop and die. The very rocks about them began to shake and quake, moving and rocking with the anger and the fury and the loss.

But Aerith didn't care. With one stroke, her world was gone.

"_Aerith," _her mother said...

* * *

_Tick... tock..._

_Tick... ... tock... ..._

_Tick... ... ... ... ... ... ... ..._


	23. Part Twenty Three: Forgiveness

**:: Heart Less Love ::**

I'm so afraid to love you, but more afraid to lose

Clinging to a past that doesn't let me choose.

Once there was a darkness, deep and endless night;

You gave me everything you had, oh, you gave me light.

And I will remember you;  
Will you remember me?  
-_Sarah McLachlan_

**Part Twenty Three: Forgiveness**

_**Forgive me, for I have sinned.**_

* * *

Aerith was weeping.

Everyone clung to ground or floor or rocks for some steady purchase as the world heaved around them, but also, they watched as figures in cloaks began to appear as if like the visions in the corridors, wearing robes with coloured trim and deep hoods, robes in white, grey and black. One was stood out from among the others.

"_Aerith," _Ifalna said, pushing her hood back from her ageless face. She resembled her daughter greatly, or rather, vice versa. Hers was a face written with love, for surely the artist had only that in mind when creating her. Her eyes were a deeper shade of green than her daughters, her hair a shade more red. But everything else could have been directly copied from to the other. _"My daughter, you have the power for this."_

"She's gone, she's gone," Aerith sobbed.

"_Think back to what we told you, Aerith. We told you, that the price of your gift was a high one."_

"No! Not Tifa, please, take anything, take me, take me!" She glared up at her mother, "Take me, not her, please, please!"

"_My child, this is in your power, this is your choice," _Ifalna knelt and touched her daughter's cheeks, _"To love deeply, Aerith, is to give up everything that you are. You love, so far, that you cannot visualise a future, if Tifa is not in it. But the future, it requires that you make a sacrifice. Just one. It is a choice you must undertake, for yourself... do you understand?"_

"I have the power..." Aerith slowly lowered Tifa, and scrambled across the ground towards the Black Materia. Yuffie jumped and tried to reach for it, but hands were on her shoulders, touching and loving. She glanced between the two hooded figures then at Aerith.

"Aerith..." she said slowly.

"I understand, I think," she stared intently into the gem, then turned and moved back towards Tifa, placing it over Tifa's stomach, "Tifa, can you hear me, stay, a little longer."

She leaned over, pressing her body over Tifa's as she drew the shuriken out and threw it aside, it clattering and rolling into the Lifestream, passing far away from sight. Everyone held their breath, almost as much as Aerith did.

But then, Yuffie was there, by her side.

"Aerith," she said softly, "I'm sorry."

"No... I know," Aerith raised her tear stained face, "I forgive you."

"You... you forgive me?"

"Yes... of course. I love you too, how could I not?" Aerith smiled then blinked, when Yuffie pressed her hands on the backs of both Tifa's still body and Aerith, "What... what are you doing?"

"I'm helping, as best as I can... so hurry up! Save us!" Yuffie's smile was watery, "Please!"

"I understand," Aerith frowned, and began to concentrate.

It wasn't anything palpable at first. Maybe they could feel the stirrings of it, among the dense air that hung in the cavern, or the way that the lifestream seemed to slow. One by one, the hooded people gathered about the kneeling trio of women began to lower their hoods, revealing faces marked with wisdom and knowledge, ancient faces, young faces, faces with love. Every single face that looked down upon them was filled with that emotion.

_**Forgive me, I have loved too much.**_

Aerith reached up and grasped Yuffie's hands, and suddenly, they were all there, Cloud, Vincent and Cid, all clasping arms about her. Strength flowing from each of them into her as she began to build the net of magic, feeling it surge into her from a well hidden deep, a strange power she was frightened of, because she had misused it, because she was afraid that to do so again, would bring only terrible pain to those around her. It built it, drawing both from inside her, shining white and green, merging and blending in thousands of intricate ways that the naked eye could barely discern where one colour stopped and another began. She closed her eyes, focusing, letting her mind run free...

* * *

"_So, how did I do?"_

_She looked up at the taller girl who was stifling a laugh. She puffed her lip out at Tifa, who was trying her hardest now to muffled laughter with the end of her long fishtailed hair, caught up in that steel clip._

"_Oh come on, it wasn't that bad!"_

"_N-no, it was... hahaha... it was so unique, so... so..." Tifa snorted, unable to contain herself, "You'd have done better bashing your face into the keys."_

"_Thanks," Aerith huffed._

"_Oh come on, here, move aside," still chuckling she sat on the piano seat next to Aerith, and placed those deceptively delicate and long fingered hands on the keys. Then, as the first note hit the air sweetly, her eyes closed with a kind of passion. Aerith felt caught up by that wonderful music that this girl could coax out of the piano which had sounded like two men with an accordion having a fist fight when she had tried it. Tifa dragged her along with her, on the ride of the wave where music swelled and crashed, where it made storms and islands in her soul and calmed her heart and fears. This was the most wonderful thing she had ever heard._

_It was then, that she decided to fall in love. It was seeing how Tifa's lips turned up, how delighted she seemed, that her heart filled to bursting with love. And when the fingers became still and the last notes hummed in the air, all she did was quietly take Tifa's hand._

_It was enough._

* * *

Tifa felt warmer, maybe it was the magic, maybe the prayers were working. Aerith kept her eyes closed, listening to those around her and to the magic, to her memories, to the price needed to bring a final end for all this madness. It was what Tifa would have wanted.

"Yuffie," it was Vincent.

"No, I'm a monster... I killed her..."

"Yuffie, even if you are a monster, I will stay by your side. I could never leave you alone."

There was a sob, "I said that to you."

"Yes you did, and now I'm saying it to you. I love you... I will love you no matter what you are."

"Vincent..."

_**Forgive me, for I am filled with despair and loneliness.**_

* * *

_She sat there on the shore, holding Tifa as together they watched the waves, knowing that someone would come for them soon enough. Tifa was heavy against her, but she loved having her there. She still hadn't found the right words to express to Tifa what she was coming to mean to her, but at the same time, a dreadful guilt weighed on her soul._

_How could she give herself to Tifa, when all she knew was this distrust of people?_

_When love itself could break the heart?_

_How could she do that to the one she loved? How could anyone willing and openly say to someone, "I love you, I love you so much stars are born and die in your eyes. I love you so much that when I sleep, I dream of you, I dream of a life with you and only you? But I must go... and I might die."_

_She had known since Cosmo Canyon the true weight of her journey and where it would take her. Only now, she had become wrapped up in a love she couldn't control, a love she didn't want to control. Despair ate away at her. She loved Tifa so much, she loved..._

_She kissed Tifa's brow and began to cry. "Why..."_

"_Mmmm s'warm," mumbled Tifa, snuggling in closer then coughing a little._

"_...why did I have to love you?"_

* * *

It was changing, the channelled magic. She could feel it, merging and bursting with new life. It filled her and sparkled across her skin and through her mind, she could feel how it made everything brand new again, how it brought everything into sharper focus with added colour.

It was beautiful.

The warmth in the middle, between herself and Tifa was growing, a kind of painful delight that made her close her eyes tighter. Time was changing, life was changing. It was bigger than simply this cavern. It seemed to push past the roots of old buildings and pipes and explode into air, then on those currents it rode out into the world, shooting like stars across the horizon. The hooded ones around them lifted their faces, murmuring and whispering, sweet joy in their voices. They whispered, "Come see, come see..."

"Vincent," Yuffie cried, "I love you too, I do..."

"The Change, The Change..."

Aerith opened her mouth and exhaled magic.

_**Forgive me, for you are my world and without you, I am nothing.**_

* * *

"_Will I ever have my memories back?" She sat, staring at the wall, at the picture of them as a group hung there, high beyond their beds. Cloud's room was silent as usual, but downstairs in the kitchenette she could hear the children quietly talking. Beside her on the bed sat the beautiful, raven haired woman who had come to her with love, a woman she loved deeply._

_She couldn't say why, but so much joy exploded in her heart she saw her. However, so many holes remained in her memory, spots of nothing, no colour or pictures or words. Once, Tifa had played music for her, and she had listened. Listening, it almost brought it back._

_She thought that if she could remember anything, it would be that she loved Tifa, that she loved everything Tifa was, that the music somehow was a key to the heart she had thrown over her shoulder a long time ago for someone else to pick up and dust off. Looking at the picture, she was focused on herself, younger, smartly dressed and blushing but laughing as next to her with an arm about her shoulder was Tifa, with longer hair, but those same eyes._

"_Maybe, one day."_

"_Why do I love you?" Aerith asked, turning to Tifa._

"_You don't ever know, I suppose," Tifa smiled at her, gentle and patient, "sometimes, love just happens and you go along for the ride."_

"_For the ride."_

"_That's right, on a road to a place far away." Hands took hers, hands made for a piano, for loving touches and for mixing drinks; hands that could beat up thugs as easily as mix batter, "It's a journey that you choose to undertake together, for ill or worse. However many obstacles come in your way, you choose to get up and fight, those are crossroads."_

"_If you don't choose to fight?"_

"_Then you go separate ways, to find whatever it is you are looking for. But if you love someone, you stay together, you hurdle problems and find out that love isn't the destination, it's the journey. Being together, every day, learning about each other, that is love."_

"_I see, the piano though..." Aerith closed her eyes, "When I hear it... I hear something that I might have left behind."_

"_Tell me about what you hear, I'll play, every day for you."_

"_Stars..." Aerith whispered, "I hear stars..."_

* * *

"I hear... stars..."

Aerith opened her eyes, as the magic was leaving, it had done it's work, leaving her completely wrung out to dry, and with careful hands she placed Tifa's body down. The eyes opened, and Tifa sat up so quickly that she hit Cloud on the chin, making him lurch backwards.

"...because I might ruin... my... dress?" Tifa blinked, then placed hands to her back. "Uh... I'm... not dead?"

Aerith sat, too exhausted to feel shock or amazement.

"Amazing," breathed Cid, " How...?"

"_The choice was made. You are a master of time and creation magic, Aerith... no." _Ifalna nodded to the woman at her side. Aerith blinked, seeing K'listo. _"Predecessor K'listo is right. High Priestess." _And she bowed.

Slowly, each robed figure in the room bowed, each with a murmur of 'you did well'. Aerith stayed seated, numb and shocked. High Priestess? Of what? Her religion and her race were all dead. But more so, seeing the pride on her mothers face, it was enough. "I did it..." she whispered and to that each figure nodded and one by one, began dispersing from sight, until only two remained.

"_Yuffie," _said the woman with the pale hair and amber, snake-like eyes. _"You did well. Now, you have one final task, and my cursed blood can be removed from this world."_

"_Be strong," _Arkilles added, taking his wife, Jenova by the arm, _"And now we honour you all. Blessings upon you."_

They too vanished.

Aerith looked down into her lap, at the chunk of grey materia now, holding it up to the light. Motes of light swum within it, visible through the cracks of the crystal. "It's done with, I can barely feel anything from it."

"More to the point," Cid demanded, "What the hell was that magic?"

"I was.. given power, a while ago. It's what saved me, but maybe, it's always been there, alongside my abilities to heal. It's a type of magic, called Time Magic. The knowledge for this rests in time based materia, like Slow or Stop." Aerith looked at Cid, "Long ago, Cetra had made many schools of magic types, each as unique as the last. When they began to fade away into the Lifestream, their knowledge solidified as materia, types of materia."

Cloud groaned, "You know, Sephiroth once gave us a terrible explanation as to why we could use magic and what materia was, that just made it about ten times simpler."

Aerith laughed, "Well, I _am _a Cetra."

"A High Priestess, no less." Tifa smiled back.

There was a sudden snatching motion, and like a rocket Yuffie had the grey materia in hand, balancing at the edge of the river of the Lifestream. Alarmed, the heroes rose to their feet, staring uncertainly at the young ninja. "Don't move," she warned.

"Yuffie," Tifa said in alarm, pointing.

They followed her gaze. Behind Yuffie a pool of blood was dripping. "Yuffie, are you hurt?" Cloud demanded.

"No," she smiled, "But Tifa's wound had to go somewhere."

"I... I don't..."

"Every sin has a punishment, Aerith," Yuffie locked eyes with her, "Jenova knew this... my mother did... my father does... even you do. But, this is something that I can do. I do love you, Vincent... so understand, and maybe... no. I'll take this away, far away... so thank you. Everyone, really, thank you. You're my family," she smiled tearfully, "...and goodbye."

Before anyone could reach her, she had jumped into the Lifestream and in the silence of the great Cavern, with Vincent at the edge of the plateau, they waited, hours... but she never came out.

_**...and say, Forgive me too whilst you're at, Aerith, what do you say?**_

* * *

**:: Seven Months Later ::**

The wedding had finally been televised across the world. It was slated as the single most watched event in the history of mankind. But Aerith hadn't cared a bit about that, all she had seen was the woman walking down the aisle towards her in the black dress to match her white one, the bridge decorated in flowers and the faces of her loved ones smiling. The after party had been lavish, almost excessive in size and practically anyone who was anyone and some who weren't had been there, toasting the happy couple.

Once things had a few days to settle down, Tifa had cut her hair.

When Aerith asked about this, all Tifa had said as it was cut into a wispy length ragged pixie style, was that when it grew out a bit longer, it would be her way to remember. It wasn't raised much, but they had to remember somehow. Several months ago, Yuffie had gone into the waters of the Lifestream, to try and preserve the black materia. Aerith had felt her swimming away, closer to the core of the world, but even then her senses dulled to nothing, and Yuffie was no longer there for her, nothing in the back of mind.

But this hadn't been the blow that had stunned her.

It had started as something she attributed to stress. When the third month came rolling around, she was getting worried. Before the wedding, several months later, she decided to go and see an actual doctor, made an appointment down in Clinic and was seen by the kind doctor who had treated Zack and Cloud so long ago. It was there that her worse fears were confirmed.

When she came home, she cried the entire night and would barely speak to Tifa. However, when the young teens were a bed, Tifa laid by her side and asked her what the matter could possibly be. Haltingly, the beautiful ancient replied, "I'm sterile."

_The price we ask is a high one._

After the wedding, Tifa had cheerfully said that she could have the children, but tests had shown that she was completely incapable of bearing a child to term. Devastated, they laid together at night, wondering how on Gaia this could be resolved. Aerith knew it was a high price to pay, a terrible price. But it didn't stop her from watching Marlene and Denzel, or from comforting poor Marlene when the signs of womanhood came upon her.

Gently she explained to the young girl what was happening to her, something that her father would be totally useless in doing. However...

...it was two weeks later, when Aerith was bringing in the laundry from drying, when she saw Marlene trying to lift a heavy box of bike parts that Denzel had left lying around from trying to build his own motorcycle like Cloud. She was about to call out to Marlene, when it happened. Symbols appeared, glowing on the skin Marlene's arms briefly and suddenly she hefted the box like it weighed nothing.

Aerith dropped the laundry in shock.

With some digging, thanks to the help of Reeve, she began finding more and more reports of people, scattered as they were, having natural magic. When she was sitting at the desk in the evening, a full two months after their wedding, Tifa slid into the seat next to her. "It's dark in here with just the moonlight, should turn the light on and save your eyesight."

"Tifa," Aerith said slowly, "I understand."

"What, what do you understand?"

"The price. It wasn't just sterility, it was..." Aerith shook her head, "Across the world, we are being born again."

"We?" Tifa lifted an eyebrow.

"...Cetra, the migration _home_..."

* * *

She surfaced, finally. It felt like she'd been down there too long, but at least she didn't smell too bad, she reasoned. With confident strokes, she pulled herself through the water and to the shore, and then gripped at the wooden porch outcropping that decorated the crystal cave where Lucretia was entombed still. Going to heave herself from the water,, she channelled her magic into the water, moving it so it helped to push her onto the shoreline. Her time among the knowledged ones in the depths had given her a greater understanding of where this was all going, where it was all finally leading up to. Those with the potential, would one day wield the magic as their forbears had.

Humans, just another type of Cetra, that had forgotten magic and forsaken the spirits and knowledge and sought science instead. Now, this was all changing, because of what the High Priestess had done.

Everything was changing.

His face came into view, grinning down at her, "Oh, so you're here too."

"Fair," she acknowledged.

"It seems she doesn't know the strength of her magic, or of her heart," He straightened up so she could sit upright too, brushing hair long from her face, still soaked through. "...she changed a lot more than what she can imagine, changed so many wrongs... and who knows how this world will take this?"

"You talk a lot for a pretty boy," she grumbled, trying to get to her feet, then wobbled and almost face-planted if he hadn't caught her mid-fall. "Ugh. Thanks."

"No problem. So, think it's time we went home? He's waiting for you..."

She looked behind her at the water, then at the crystal, then finally at Zack; handsome, tall, with that scar and that cheeky smile. "Sure, lets go give some folks a heart attack," she chuckled.

"Whatever you say, Kisaragi," he laughed.

* * *

( NB: I like a happy ending for this one, sort of. I wonder what will happen... after all, this IS a trilogy... I'd like to apologise in how long it took for me to get this damn thing finished. I've had a lot of difficult times, but finally, I have my head in the right place to finish this. ALSO, sorry for spelling errors. Feh lol. Love you all, B xxxx )


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